The Neutral Zone
by Alpha Flyer
Summary: In a place beyond the reach of law and justice, where compassion is but a memory and the truth lies hidden from view, whose face will you see in the mirror? Strong TNG element.
1. Tea for Two

AUTHOR'S NOTE

I usually preface my stories with a bit of an explanation. This one I will allow to speak for itself, with Tom Paris helping out on occasion.

This story follows closely on "The Andorian Incident"; you may want to read that first although I have tried to make doing so non-essential. There is also an echo of some characters and events from "Choices". (For a timeline of all the stories that comprise my private little post-Endgame universe, please check my profile page.)

None of the characters or background elements that you recognize from the Paramount library belong to me; the story itself does, though, as do the characters you've met only in my stories. I write for fun, not profit.

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><p><strong>THE NEUTRAL ZONE<strong>

**by Alpha Flyer**

_Time's glory is to calm contending kings,_

_To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light,_

_To stamp the seal of time in aged things,_

_To wake the morn and sentinel the night,_

_To wrong the wronger till he render right,_

_To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,_

_And smear with dust their glittering golden towers._

William Shakespeare, _The Rape of Lucrece_

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><p><strong>Chapter 1 – Tea for Two<strong>

"So, what exactly is it you want me to tell you?"

"That depends on what _you_ want to tell _me_, Tom."

"I'm not sure I particularly want to tell you anything, frankly. We never had this kind of … session on Voyager. I'm not sure I know what to do with it anymore." Tom Paris set down his tea, but kept stroking the rim of his mug absently with his thumb, studiously avoiding the Counselor's gaze. If he was looking at anything at all, it was not presently contained in Deanna Troi's office.

"_Post-mission decompression counseling is required for any member of Starfleet personnel who actively participated in a mission in the course of which that member caused or witnessed the death of, or serious injury to, a sentient being. _You can quote the regulation as well as I can, Tom. Will had his session three days ago, and I know for fact that you _have_ had post-traumatic stress counseling … in the past. When you were on the Exeter. So there's no point being disingenuous about it, Commander." The look Deanna gave the First Officer, laced as it was with a mixture of sympathy and humour, only served to underscore the firmness of her words.

Tom gave a dark chuckle. "Yeah. After Caldik Prime. Thanks for the reminder, Counselor. '_You caused the death of three fellow officers, Lieutenant Paris. How does that make you __feel__, especially in light of your father's position__?_' Most unhelpful three hours of my life, documented on pages one through thirty-four of the extensive portfolio of failed attempts to get Thomas Eugene Paris' _self-destructive and deeply conflicted psyche_ inspected, dissected, rejected and perfected."

He took a defiant sip of his tea, and set the mug back down on the table with an audible clunk. "So fine, we've established that you won't let me get away with bullshitting you. But that still doesn't mean that I feel any need to download my 'feelings' on what happened during the Andorian mission, does it. Assuming I have any feelings to download. So where does that leave us?"

"Oh, you have feelings about that mission alright, Tom. I can sense them churning from over here, and have for the last week. Don't forget, I'm an empath, so don't try and bluff your way through. But what you actually do with this mandatory session is entirely up to you. If you prefer, we can just sit here, have tea and chat. I'll log your attendance, and you're clear."

Tom's bright blue eyes flew up in surprise, finally meeting Deanna Troi's warm, black ones. "You'd do that? Really?"

"Certainly," the half-Betazoid counselor replied evenly. "I don't think that counselling is particularly useful when it's done just to fill in an official template, or to tick off a box in the dictates of staff regulations. I prefer talking to people when I can provide them with something they actually need or want. That's a far better use of my time, and theirs."

Tom Paris nodded and smiled, albeit a little self-consciously. "And I don't want or need anything right now. I'm good."

It was Deanna's turn to pick up her cup. She carefully lifted it to her lips, took a delicate sip, and changed tactics.

"Yes, you're right, you don't need anything, from anyone. After all, you've come to the conclusion, all by yourself, that what you really need to do right now is to broadcast to the whole crew - and to yourself whenever you look in the mirror and see that number carved into your neck - that Commander Thomas Eugene Paris is a convicted criminal. Despite the fact that you were given an official pardon, and could have Beverly cover the number up again in a matter of minutes. You're dealing with things; _you're good_. I get it. But do feel free to come back if you ever want to talk about anything. Or maybe just to have another cup of tea."

The smile drained off Tom's face. "Shit, Deanna, that's not fair. You dragged me in here, on the pretext of a routine psych detox, but what you really want me to do is spill my guts about some of the more sordid aspects of my past history? Let me tell you, others have tried their hand at that and failed."

"Yes, Tom, I'm aware of that. As the ship's counselor I do have access to your psych profile and yes, I do know that you persistently resisted or sabotaged any and all attempts at mandatory counselling in Auckland, and that you were whisked away into the Delta Quadrant before you ever got the chance to get counselling voluntarily after you got out. I also know that for seven years on Voyager you lived through more traumatic events in a week than most Starfleet officers do in a lifetime. You sat through one or two of the mandatory decompression debriefs when you got home, and passed the general psych evaluation that was part of the admissions process for the Kirk Centre. But even then, you never let anyone touch Auckland. Ever."

She glared at him, her black eyes like glowing embers – warm and comforting, but ready to ignite if sufficiently provoked. "And now, suddenly, you're literally wearing it on your sleeve. Your neck, rather. Something has changed, and it's my job to find out why, and whether it will affect your ability to carry out your duties."

Tom looked around the room as if seeking an escape hatch, finding none. Well, there was the door, of course, but somehow he knew it wouldn't do this time.

"What if … what if I'm not ready … to talk about it?"

"That tattoo on your neck tells me you are. More than your voice does. Even if you're not willing to admit it quite yet. But … fine, it doesn't have to be today."

Deanna leaned back in her chair. "So, how's Miral doing? I heard she's starting to beat the four-year-olds at three-dimensional chess."

"I thought it was the bar at first."

"Miral's been playing chess in a bar?"

"Now who's being disingenuous?"

"Sorry. The bar in that horrid space station that you told us about at dinner?"

"Yeah. The illustrious 'Starlight Lounge'." Tom snorted contemptuously, shaking his head as his olfactory memory recalled the smell of booze, illicit narcotics and bodily fluids that had accosted him, in the most unlikely establishment anyone could have picked to initiate the restoration of political stability to Andoria, and had sent his mind into a tailspin.

"As I put into my official reports, I exposed the tattoo so that the goons at Nardik Station wouldn't immediately mark me as Starfleet. But what I didn't say is that when I walked into that place, I had flashbacks. To the time before … before Auckland. To what my friend Sandrine would describe as my 'barfly period'."

He turned his gaze on Deanna Troi fully now, blue eyes blazing with remembered self-loathing. "You wouldn't believe some of the things I did then, Deanna. To survive - even though if you'd asked me at the time, I would have told you that I didn't give an actual shit whether I lived or died, and it would have been the truth. How's that for schizophrenic, eh? On top of everything else."

Deanna held his gaze, giving nothing away. He patient was on a roll now, and needed only the slightest encouragement to continue. "It seems to me that you wanted to survive more than you did not."

Tom snorted his contempt. "Yeah, I guess so, although I never quite understood why. And then I took on the assignment for Chakotay, got caught, and got … this carved into my neck." He ran his finger down the blue mark on his jugular, so like a tattoo but indelible, permanent, always there unless covered – superficially - by artificially stimulated scar tissue growth. "Like the official stamp of disapproval, that proved once and for all that I was a disappointment to everyone who knew me, and an all-round worthless piece of shit."

Tom studied his fingernails, gripped his cup again. "It was … I thought … At the time, I took it willingly. Accepted it as an confirmation of who and what I was. As I said, I actually believed that I deserved it. And everything that went with it. _Everything_. I just … took it all." His voice trailed off, his eyes were far away, darkening with a memory that the half-Betazoid read as a blast of fear and self-loathing so vehement, it forced her to swallow. She watched his knuckles on the cup turn white, felt tempted to pry it from his hand lest he break it and injure himself.

Deanna held herself very still against the words that now seemed to want to come tumbling out. He would only need the slightest of prompts.

"And do you still? Think that you deserved it? Being marked like that?"

Tom shook his head slowly, chewing his lower lip. "No. No, that's just it. I'm quite serious when I say I got over all the crap, the low self-esteem, the constant fucking up, all of that. I realize now that when I walked out of that bar on Nardik, I should have known right away that that was no longer me. That I don't owe that … that loser anything anymore. I paid that price. It's over. It took me years to accept that, but I'm pretty certain I do, now."

Deanna looked at him thoughtfully. "So what is it then, about that mark, that made you decide to keep it visible even now?"

Tom had resorted back to stroking the rim of his teacup with his thumb, eyes far away. "I told Will that I would want to talk to you about the flashbacks, and that that's why I wanted to keep the tattoo. And at the time when I said that, I meant it. But I've been doing some thinking since."

He gave another self-deprecating snort. "Unusual as that is for me. I'm not normally into bouts of self-analysis, as you've probably gathered. But I've figured out now that what bugs me is not … that I once was a loser or a drunk. That's shit I did to myself, by myself. I lived through it, took responsibility for it. I evolved and moved past it, and as I said, I'm over it. Really, really over it, and not just saying that. No, …"

The look Tom now gave to Deanna Troi was a burning mixture of anguish and fury that almost caused her to move away from him in her seat. "What's been keeping me awake recently is Auckland. Not the shit that happened before then, not the stuff that came up in my throat in that bar. No, it's just … Auckland itself. The conviction for something that should never have been a crime. The helplessness, the betrayal. The official attempt at a re-run, when Voyager came back. And what happened on Andor, especially with Ramara, just brought it all back, I just didn't realize it right away."

"Betrayal?" Deanna was trying to follow his logic now, but clearly there were pieces missing that he hadn't gotten to yet, and that she needed to put in place in order to tap into the source of the raw anger she saw before her now.

"Yes. Betrayal. You see, when my father gave that evidence at the Maquis trial, about how all that suffering in the colonies, all those atrocities that turned ordinary people into criminals, the … the stuff I went through in Auckland - how all that essentially was the result of some political hacks out to make a fast buck and gaining brownie points for proclaiming a historic victory… The same people who had sworn an oath to uphold the 'principles of the Federation'."

He paused, and Deanna stayed silent, allowing him the space to gather his thoughts. "Talking to my Dad about what really happened with the Cardassian treaty and the DMZ, it was like getting raped all over again, just in a different way." At this, Deanna took in a sharp breath. She made a quick note on her pad. Tom barrelled on heedlessly, not noticing.

"And what happened on Andor, especially with that guard, Ramara, just brought all that home again. I guess what makes me so _fucking angry_ is when I can't do anything about … injustice. About people using others, for their own end, in the name of profit or political advantage. Or in the case of the rapes, shredding somebody's soul for just a few seconds of gratification, or for the sake of a momentary power trip. And I hate, just _hate_ having to … essentially lie back and take it, when what I really want to do is grab a phaser and blast the whole fucking lot of them out the nearest airlock."

He shook his head, breathing deeply, slowing down. "So I'm keeping this mark as a sort of protest, to remind myself, and others, that there's some major unresolved shit out there in our beloved Federation that still hasn't been addressed. Stuff that's been swept under the rug because it was too uncomfortable to think about. Like that mark was covered up initially, as soon as they carved it into my neck. Hear no evil, see no evil, think no evil …"

Tom cast Deanna a challenging look. "So you see, counselor, this tattoo – keeping it there – it isn't about my psychological well-being, or some kind of private catharsis. It's about politics. I may not be in a position to fix corruption in the Federation, but with this tattoo, I can sure as hell remind people that it exists. And for some reason, that's important to me right now. I'm glad that Will didn't ask me to take it off. You can tell him I said so."

Deanna looked at the Commander thoughtfully. A good start had been made; it was enough for one day. She knew where the iceberg was now; eventually, Tom Paris would allow her to look at the vast expanses beneath, including the ones he seemed to be rationalizing away for now.

Eventually.

Her own past experiences of being violated by outside forces would help. But now was not the time. Not yet.

"Thanks for telling me this, Tom; I know that it's not easy for you. And no, I won't talk to Will about anything you said here today. If there's something you want him to know, you can tell him yourself."

She paused briefly, weighing her next words carefully. "But what I'm wondering is this – and I'd invite you just to think about it, for the next time we … have tea – is where your private political protest ends, and your psychological well-being begins. Or the other way around. You see, I'm not so convinced those two things are entirely unrelated. But we can save that for another time. Do you want a refill on your tea?"

Tom gratefully accepted another cup of Earl Grey, and for a while they sat in companionable silence, punctuated by small exchanges about Miral and her rather precocious development. Deanna had taken to the little girl instantly, wistfully regretting the fact that she was still childless. Miral reciprocated "Auntie Dee's" enthusiasm in spades, in particular as she always seemed to know exactly when a hug or a tickle was needed, or when it was time for personal space to be given.

"You know," he finally said, "I think I'll tell B'Elanna why I've decided to keep the tattoo. She hasn't asked, not really. Over the years we've figured out that we'll talk to each other about stuff when we're ready, and that it doesn't pay either of us to push. So, thanks. For getting me ready for that talk. I'm sure she's been dying of curiosity."

Deanna was about to give him an encouraging smile, when the ship's comm system came to life.

"Riker to Paris and Troi. Please come to the bridge. Repeat, Paris and Troi to the bridge please. We have received a distress call, from inside the Neutral Zone."


	2. Shadows, Cries and Whispers

**Chapter 2 – Shadows, Cries and Whispers **

The bridge of the Enterprise was a hive of activity.

Lieutenant Marc O'Reilly was at the helm, checking the ship's precise coordinates; until such time as the determination had been made that they would respond to the call, maintaining her course so as to remain in Federation space was an unspoken imperative. He cast a look over his shoulder to see if his XO had arrived yet and smiled when the door whooshed open to admit the Commander. O'Reilly had been a more than competent pilot ever since Riker had taken command of the ship, but Tom Paris' arrival on the ship had initially caused his confidence to fly out the view screen.

It had taken Tom some time to figure out that the guy seemed to consider him some sort of living legend, and he had made a deliberate effort to invite him to some intense pilot-to-pilot bonding over tactical sims on the holodeck. Bizarrely, it was only after a spot of aerial combat in the Andorian system that the XO's presence had started to bring the Chief Conn officer more reassurance than nervousness, a development both Riker and Tom had greeted with relief regardless of how it had come about.

Lieutenant Harry Kim's fingers were flying over the Ops console, seeking to track the precise origin of the signal. So far he had come up empty. He cursed softly to himself, a habit he had developed only recently and for which his best friend laid the blame squarely on Harry finally being promoted, after seven years as an Ensign in the Delta Quadrant. "Guess now that you're a full Lieutenant, you think you can let your mouth run off with you, eh?" Tom had said, the third time it had happened. "Suppose it's okay; seems to have worked for me …"

Jorak, the ship's tactical officer, ran a series of quick checks to ensure that the Enterprise was ready for any surprises that might come her way, in addition to casting about for unidentified energy signatures in the vicinity. He had detailed a couple of ensigns to carry out additional sweeps from the auxiliary consoles; their hunched shoulders spoke volumes of the sudden tension on the bridge. This close to Romulan space, chances were good to excellent that the source of the distress signal – if such it was – came from a Romulan ship, which in turn exponentially increased the likelihood of cloaked war birds making an unannounced and unwanted appearance.

Tom took his chair to Captain Riker's right and checked his own console for updates. No source of the call was discernible, but the male voice kept coming, over and over, as clear as day: "To any Federation ship. We require immediate assistance. Coordinates …" and it cut out.

Tom's instincts told him that whoever had sent the signal had likely not survived the attempt, his last action being to hit the "repeat" command. He looked to Deanna Troi. "That voice," he asked softly. "On the level?"

The Half-Betazoid counselor listened to the replay, twice. "Based on the tone of the voice and the inflections, I would say yes. Whoever made that transmission was in fear of their life, as well as desperate. He knew that making that call was dangerous."

Tom turned to Jorak. "Any record in the database about recent trips by Starfleet or other Federation vessels?"

"None, sir. The last recorded flight into the Neutral Zone was by the Enterprise herself on Stardate 41986.0. I believe both Captain Riker and Counselor Troi were on board then." Riker and Deanna separately nodded their confirmation.

"There have been rumours that about three months after that, the USS Hiroshima crossed into the Neutral Zone. She was lost with all hands, and all indications are that Romulan war birds were responsible. The Federation Council had to agree that no Starfleet vessels would enter the Neutral Zone to look for debris."

"But that was over ten years ago, and hardly recent. We've made a lot of strides with the Romulans since, even if they still cling to the Neutral Zone like a desperately needed security blanket." Riker turned to Harry Kim. "Anything yet?"

"No, sir," came the immediate reply. "I can't trace the source, only the vector. It's definitely coming from the Neutral Zone. Where from exactly, I can't tell."

Tom Paris, who had been chewing his lower lip in his favourite 'don't bug me, I'm thinking' mode, took a deep breath and looked to the Captain. "Let's assume for the sake of argument that whatever facility or ship that signal came from, is run by Romulans. That would make it illegal for them to be in the Neutral Zone, regardless of any political strides we've made, so it would stand to reason that they wouldn't want their presence to be broadcast to the Federation."

Riker stroked his beard thoughtfully. "And that would mean …"

"… That they're operating under cloak, yes. Universal emergency frequencies are designed to cut through cloaking devices on their way out, but usually they can't be traced back on signatures alone. Senders have to provide express coordinates, like this one obviously knew, and tried to do."

Tom turned to the Ops console. "Harry, why don't you try compensating for possible multi-spectral emitter overlay, and see if you can run down the source via a tachyon sweep and reverse calculation of the resulting distortion field."

Harry Kim looked up at his best friend and XO. He still found himself occasionally wondering whether Tom's year at the James T. Kirk Centre for Advanced Strategic and Tactical Command had had some more sinister aspects to it – alien possession, impersonation, or surreptitious implants of Borg technology? There were days when Harry missed the happy-go-lucky pilot who didn't care a whit about the intricate details of subspace communications, and who left coming up with the bright technical ideas to him or B'Elanna.

It wasn't that the person he had come to think of as 'Voyager Tom' had been any less technologically savvy than the 'new and improved' version – clearly his work on the Delta Flyer, various holoprograms and certain problem scenarios had proved otherwise. But _that_ Tom Paris had generally been content to hide his at times phenomenal technical competence behind his flyboy persona, only allowing it to surface when he chose to, or when he wanted to play. And so, Harry had been allowed to excel in his field of expertise without serious competition. But now …

Harry sighed inwardly and did as instructed. _Damn._ "You were right, sir. I've got them. The signal seems to be coming from a … wait a minute. A planetoid?" He looked up, the mild irritation he had felt at having been shown up by Tom Paris in his own field having fled in the face of an interesting discovery. "Captain, Tom – sorry – _Commander_, the whole damn planetoid seems to be cloaked. I didn't think that was possible."

Riker whistled softly. "Neither did I." He exchanged eyebrow raises with his First Officer. "Now that we know where they are, can we compensate for the cloak and get them on screen?"

Jorak chimed in from Tactical. "I do not believe that that will be possible, Captain. However, I should be able to create a schematic of the region based on existing tactical star charts, and project it onto the view screen with the new planet included."

"Go ahead," Riker said. He turned to Tom again. "Looks like we've found a place the Romulans are trying to keep hidden from the Federation. Wonder what that's all about, given that they've actually been playing relatively nicely as of late. Let's have a preliminary look and report the location back to Starfleet; they should find this most interesting."

He rose from his chair and walked over to the helm, standing behind O'Reilly. "In the meantime, the Treaty of Algeron does permit entry into the Neutral Zone in order to assist vessels in distress." He turned back towards Tom. "Commander - do you agree that the exception would include responding to distress calls from … uncharted planetoids?"

Tom shrugged. "I'm a great believer in obeying the spirit rather than the letter of the law, Captain. In this case, I'd say the relevant bit of the Treaty says that it's lawful to respond to a distress call and to preserve life; the source in my view is secondary. So yes, I concur. We may want to send a heads up to Starfleet though, to cover our butt in case the Romulans take exception."

"Agreed. Harry, transmit the coordinates of the mysterious planetoid to the helm. Lieutenant O'Reilly, set a course, and try not to run into the thing. Mr. Jorak, please send a short transmission to Starfleet Command that the Enterprise is responding to a distress call from inside the Neutral Zone. No details – we don't want to attract a flock of vultures unnecessarily, in case the Romulans listen in."

He sat down in the Captain's chair again, stroking his beard. "Let's see what we find."

…..

The schematic Jorak created on the Enterprise's main view screen showed the Neutral Zone as a purple expanse between Federation space and the Romulan Empire. Several pinpoints of light represented well-catalogued star systems, uninhabited and uncolonized pursuant to the long-standing agreement between the old antagonists. As Tom had learned only recently, one of these, the Nadoo system, was well-known for the dramatic gorges and landscapes of its fourth planet – a whispered-about travel destination for adrenaline junkies and thrill-seekers, ready to risk life and limb for the cachet of experiencing the truly exotic and inaccessible.

The source of the distress call, based on Harry Kim's calculations, came from something orbiting a yellow dwarf star – not unlike Earth's Sol, but slightly smaller – that showed on the existing star charts as having three planets in slightly eccentric orbits, too close and too far, respectively, to sustain life without artificial environments. The search for multi-spectral emissions, however, had disclosed a fourth body, in between the first and second known planet and sufficiently close to the latter that it could possibly be a moon.

"We can't determine size and dimensions at this time, Captain, but the distress signal is definitely originating from there. And it is definitely subject to some form of cloak."

Riker shook his head, still finding it difficult to "Time to arrival?"

O'Reilly punched in a few commands and turned around to face Riker. "Fourteen hours at warp nine, sir." Riker nodded his confirmation of the instruction, then looked at Tom. "Time for a chat. Mr. Jorak, Counselor? And Mr. Kim, please ask Commanders Torres and Cran and Dr. Crusher to come to the briefing room as well, then join us. Marc, please ask Henley to take the helm."

…..

The briefing room was quieter than usual; with the ship headed deep into the Neutral Zone, neither Tom nor Harry felt like engaging in their usual banter. Deanna Troi looked from one officer to the other, gauging the level of tension their unexpected course change had generated.

There had already been some tangible unease among members of the Enterprise's crew in light of the ship's current mission. Relations with Romulus had improved considerably over the last few years but were still delicate, and many crewmembers were veterans of past engagements. Starfleet Command had made it clear that further rapprochement with the Federation's erstwhile bitterest enemy was both possible and desirable – especially in light of potential threats from the other Quadrants - but generations worth of mistrust and enmity were difficult to jettison, on both sides. Confidence building measures were needed, but first came the need for intelligence.

Given the Enterprise's proximity to the Neutral Zone on its return from Andor, Fleet Admiral Nacheyev had tasked the flagship with a delicate mission: she was to patrol the outer rim in order to investigate rumours that vessels of unknown origin had been crossing into the prohibited space on a regular basis over the last several years, while the Fleet was busy fighting on other fronts. Their findings would form important background for a planned major mission to Romulus, to be headed by the Fleet's newly appointed diplomatic troubleshooter, Admiral Kathryn Janeway.

Harry Kim's Ops team had been working around the clock trying to find and trace potential decaying warp signatures, so far without results. But the mere proximity to the Neutral Zone and all it stood for had the crew on edge, the feeling of unease not being helped by their most recent experience as hostages of Andorian politics. As Troi had pointed out to her _imzadi_ on a couple of occasions, what everyone really needed was a week on Risa, not looking for shadows that, if any were found, could bite them in the face.

Riker called the meeting to order as soon as Beverly Crusher, who had the farthest to come from Sickbay, had walked in and taken her seat at the table.

"Analysis?" he asked, looking at Jorak and Harry Kim in turn.

"Universal distress signal," Harry summarized for those who had not been present on the bridge when the signal had come in. "Cut off before the sender was able to provide coordinates or details. Source appears to be a planetoid inside the Neutral Zone. A fully cloaked, presently uncharted planetoid."

Jorak took up the thread. "The cloaking technology appears to be consistent with that found on Romulan war birds, but with a much broader dispersal range. So far we have detected no evidence of cloaked ships in the vicinity, despite numerous tachyon sweeps."

Tom, who had been chewing his lower lip in deep thought, said in a low voice, almost to himself, "I wonder whether that planet may have been the destination for those alleged ships we've been tasked to look out for. Would stand to reason, wouldn't it?" he looked up at the Captain, and around the table for confirmation. "I mean, if they really are entering the Neutral Zone from the Federation side, what other possible destinations are there? Romulus is too far at the other end of the Zone, and tourism into the Nadoo system is not _that _developed."

Jorak nodded as enthusiastically as his firmly controlled Vulcan mind allowed. "The Commander's logic is sound. I will focus our sweep for warp signatures on the main vectors leading towards the planetoid's location from Federation space."

"Good idea," Riker said. He turned to B'Elanna. "Can you have your team look into what might be required to expand and amplify Romulan cloaking technology to cover a planetoid? As in, how many transmitters they might require, where they might be located – on the surface or in orbit? Would it be some kind of grid, or a series of arrays? I think what we have on file about their systems should suffice for some basic calculations."

"Yes," Tom added. "And do consider that whatever they use on the planetoid could also be utilized to conceal ships in orbit; we may have to take the cloaking system out if there's hostile action. So if there's a network, the sooner we get potential coordinates for targeting, the better."

B'Elanna nodded her confirmation. "We'll get on it right away, although we may not be able to make much progress until we come out of warp and get a better read on the frequencies of the multi-spectral emissions. Right now we'd be basing everything on projections and deductions."

Tom turned to Beverly Crusher. "Dr. Crusher, you may want to get ready for casualties. If the distress call was accurate and an attack caused it to be disrupted, we should be ready for injured survivors. Plus, Jorak - we may have the need to separate factions. Any survivors we find may not get along with each other. I'd suggest mobile surgical units that can be deployed on the surface rather than bringing people aboard, plus some mobile force field containment units."

Harry added, "And given you can't transport through cloaking shields when they're still up …" Tom completed his best friend's sentence, "… we should have a number of shuttles ready. Marc, can you set up a roster for your pilots, but make sure you leave a couple of the most competent, including yourself, onboard in case we get company and need to make a quick getaway?"

O'Reilly blossomed visibly under the unrehearsed compliment and nodded forcefully. "Aye, sir." Tom knew that the chief pilot still seemed rather self-conscious around him; sooner or later, Tom hoped, they'd be able to hang out at Sandrine's and swap shaggy dog stories. Unfortunately, the Captain was by now too far removed from his own piloting days for this most basic of flyboy pleasures.

"Commander Cran," the Captain addressed the Chief Science Officer. Petra Cran was the only member of his senior staff he'd never felt tempted to address by her first name; somehow, the highly competent but bone-dry astrophysicist did not invite familiarity. "I'd be grateful if you could go through all available data bases, in particular those that pre-date the Treaty of Algeron, to determine whether there are any old records about a star system in this part of space."

It was one thing for the Romulans to cloak a whole planetoid now, but quite another to erase it from historical records. Somewhere, somehow the existence of this body must have been recorded, and any information about it would be useful. Cran nodded and got up from her seat; as far as she was concerned now that she had a job to do, any second spent listening to matters that did not involve the Astrometrics lab was a waste of time.

Riker watched her stalk out with amusement. "Dismissed," he said to the briefing room door as it whooshed shut. The others chuckled. Lieutenant Commander Petra Cran's utter inability to relate her actions to the people surrounding her – including her superior officers - was legendary; once she was set on a task, her focus on that became absolute.

Riker turned back to the remainder of the senior staff. "Now, ordinarily when it comes to distress calls, rescue takes absolute priority. But this is different. We're in the Neutral Zone and will be closer to Romulan than Federation space."

Tom took up the thread. "Not to mention the fact that a cloaked planetoid may suggest that there is something the Romulans wish to hide. There is also the possibility that the distress call is a lure. So - the primary protocol for tomorrow is defensive; humanitarian posture comes second to the safety of the ship. And the Admiralty would also remind us that we are not to upset the delicate balance we've achieved with the Romulans to date."

He looked to Riker for affirmation, and was rewarded with a nod. "Yes, that's right. We don't know what we're getting ourselves into tomorrow. But we've still got twelve hours before we get there, folks. So I suggest we all go and get some rest. Dismissed."


	3. Behind the Veil

**Chapter 3 – Behind the Veil**

The evening before the Enterprise's arrival at the source of the distress call found both Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres in their quarters, tucking in their daughter for the night. Tom had missed out on the family dinner, having had to scarf down a replicated sandwich as he went over crew schedules and assignments for what promised to be a challenging day ahead, but he always made a point of being there for Miral's bedtime; this night was no exception.

"Daddy," she squealed as soon as he walked in, her big blue eyes bright and not at all sleepy. No matter how much like B'Elanna she looked and acted at times – or perhaps because of it - Miral Paris was one-hundred percent Daddy's girl, a fact that was no secret on the ship and that amused her mother to no end. If she had ten little fingers, Tom Paris would have been tightly wrapped around each and every one of them, rather than, as he admittedly was, just around the two Miral did in fact possess.

She stretched out her arms in the universal pick-me-up gesture, and he happily obliged, giving her an affectionate hug as she wrapped her arms around his neck and nestled her head against his chin. Her voice took on a slight pleading tone, just in case. "Can I have a story? Please, Daddy? Please?"

Tom smiled, giving a knowing sideways glance at B'Elanna as he set Miral back down in her crib and handed her Toby the Targ, who had fallen out of the crib again - probably tossed overboard to elicit a scandalized reaction from B'Elanna, who still clung to her rather illusionary title over the tatty beast. "Of course, munchkin. How about … oh, I don't know. 'I love You Forever'? Since Mommy's here listening, and it's such a nice, totally mushy story about mommies?"

Predictably, B'Elanna rolled her eyes. "Sentimental claptrap," she declared resolutely. "How about …" "'Girl Warriors at the River of Blood'?" Tom supplied helpfully, raising an eyebrow. His wife smacked him in the arm.

"Read her something from that book about the pig and the bear with limited brain power. That's a Tom Paris-appropriate sort of thing, isn't it?" She bent down to give her daughter a kiss. "I'll leave you two to your story. Good night, sweetie. See you in the morning. Love you."

Tom had gotten about a third of the way through the chapter in which Eeyore lost his tail when Miral's breathing began to get soft and even. He put down the book and stroked her hair gently, pulled the blanket back over her shoulder and made to leave his daughter's room. He was almost out the door when a small voice came, slightly muffled by the blanket but still as clear as a bell, "Daddy, what's senti-men-tal claptrap?"

Tom barely choked back his laughter. Trust his little darling, precocious even for the slightly accelerated development her quarter-Klingon genes afforded her, to pick up on the one new phrase of the day that might have been better ignored.

Casting about for an answer that she could relate to, he said, "You know, how you and I always get all sad and cry a little when Bambi's mother gets shot?" Miral nodded slowly. "And Mommy just says something like, 'That reminds me, what are we having for dinner tonight?' or 'We haven't had venison for a while'?"

Miral nodded again, solemnly this time. "That's because you and I, we're sentimental people. And she isn't. 'Sentimental' is what Mommy calls the mushy stuff. She can take it only in small doses, and only on special occasions. And she hates it when a book, a holovid or a movie is all wired up to deliberately _make_ you feel mushy, like it pushes all your mush buttons on purpose. That's where the claptrap thing comes in. Okay?"

"'Kay. Night, Daddy." Miral snuggled into her blanket. The suppressed giggle over his shoulder indicated that B'Elanna had tiptoed back into the room and listened to the exchange. "Tom Paris, walking dictionary," she said.

Together they looked down at Miral, who was already mostly asleep, now curled around Toby.

"Have you ever seen anything so completely and utterly adorable?" Tom asked in paternal wonderment.

B'Elanna chuckled. "Yep, just last night, and the night before. And there was that particularly cute nap last weekend …"

She looked at her daughter fondly, then directed her gaze at her husband. "But just for the record, you're pretty adorable when you're asleep, too, Commander."

Tom bristled with mock indignation. "Starfleet Commanders are _not_ adorable. We are fierce and powerful creatures who command respect and awe."

"Uh-huh," his mate said in response, sounding neither respectful nor particularly awed.

Quietly they left their daughter's bedroom, Tom's fingers lightly placed on his wife's lower back, enjoying the simple touch. He closed the door behind them softly with his other hand. "Glass of wine before bed?" he asked, and B'Elanna nodded her affirmation. "Small one, just enough to help us sleep," she said. "Lord knows what we're facing tomorrow; we can both use some rest."

Tom went to the replicator, ordered two glasses of Kitarian Merlot - his favourite vintage, 2282, both for oenophile and sentimental reasons. Whoever had programmed this replicator had clearly been both a connoisseur _and_ a genius. Geordie LaForge, maybe? He and the Captain, who had lived in these quarters before his brief commission on the USS Titan, had been pretty good friends.

He took the glasses over to the couch where B'Elanna was already curled up, handed her one of them and plonked himself down beside her. He stretched his long legs out on the coffee table as she snuggled up to him, wrapped his left arm around her and pulled her closer.

"Yeah. In the meantime, let's enjoy five minutes of domestic bliss while we can." Tom took a sip of wine and looked down at his mate's dark head thoughtfully. "You know, if someone had told me a few years ago that I'd end up like this …"

"… you'd have laughed them out of the room?" B'Elanna finished his sentence for him. Tom nodded his assent, his lips ending back up in B'Elanna's hair on the downward trajectory. "Or thrown whatever I was drinking at them. I certainly wouldn't have believed them."

He twirled the stem of his glass between his fingers pensively, the silence stretching out between them, but not uncomfortably so given the contentment each always found in the other's physical closeness.

After a few minutes of quiet reflection, Tom lifted his head and found his voice. "I finally had my psych detox with Deanna today."

"And?" B'Elanna knew better than to push. If he was ready to talk, he would; otherwise she'd be content to sit there beside him, breathing in his scent and soaking up the warmth his body seemed to radiate no matter what the temperature. Tomorrow and its unpredictable events would come soon enough.

"And … I realized again, how lucky I am to have you and Miral. How genuinely _lucky_." He unconsciously twirled some of her hair between three of his fingers now, winding it through and around, again and again.

"You know, that whole Andorian mess … it got me thinking. About how thin the dividing line can be between making it, and failing miserably. And how often you're completely subject to outside forces, maybe something or someone you've never even heard of before, that'll push you over one side of the line or the other. This side, you're golden. That side, you're a sitting duck. Or worse. And most of the time, you don't get to have any choice in the matter."

He took a sip of his wine. "I hope that never happens to me again, that I get to be … at the receiving end of somebody's agenda. Or completely at someone else's mercy. You know, like Ramara, the Andorian guard I told you about, when she threw herself at the Emperor's feet. Or like the colonists in the DMZ, when the Federation signed away their lives and their homes, just because some asshole politicians had swung a deal with the Cardassians so they could make more money."

He fell silent for a moment, and then added softly, "Or me, when they carved that number in my throat, and … and all the … things that happened after that."

B'Elanna burrowed her face into the crook of her mate's neck. Even though there were things he would still hesitate to speak about - even to her - she knew where his mind was headed now, or thought she did. And so she said softly, "And you've kept the tattoo because …?"

Tom sighed. "Honestly? I think at this point, my reasons change every five minutes, and seem to depend on whom I'm talking to. And I think they're all true. At first, it was because I got totally rattled when I walked into that bar on Nardik Station, and so I thought there's something there I should deal with or it may catch up with my ability to do my job some day. So that's what I told Riker. Then I thought of some of those supercilious assholes on Andor, like that Terran ambassador, and how useful it would be to shock them out of their Aurelian silk socks."

He took a sip of his wine, looked down and put his lips on B'Elanna's hair for a minute. She remained silent, content to let him speak, now that he had started. It had been a long time coming, the ability to open up to one another; it remained a slow dance between them, where one would lead and the other would follow, lest a wrong step wreck the pattern.

"And by the time I finished talking to Deanna this afternoon, I had myself convinced it was all about making a political statement, along the lines of what I just mentioned. I don't think she bought it though, and it's probably just as well. That's part of it, but certainly not all of it. So, the short and the long answer is, Bee, I have absolutely no idea why I'm keeping the fucking thing. All I know is that is seems important for some reason that I look at it, and that others get to look at it on me, at least for a while. Especially since I'm still trying to figure out what kind of a commanding officer I want to be when I grow up. And I have a feeling that once I work it all out, I'll be ready to cover it up again."

He leaned back, cocking his head in an attempt to find B'Elanna's eyes. "That make any sense?" She took her head off his shoulder and put her wine glass on the table. "Mmh-hmm. Yeah, I think it does." She knew from experience that he was finished with his explanation – or was it an exploration - for the time being, and that it would likely be counterproductive to comment now.

His next question, therefore, came as a surprise – both that he asked it, and that it came out with such a sense of hesitation, trepidation even. As if he feared the answer. "You don't … you don't mind, though, do you? That it's out there, in the open like that? Where people can see it? And see what kind of … person you married?"

B'Elanna knew very well that the question was loaded with a host of others - neither formed nor asked - and that there was no right answer, at least not one she could put into words.

She turned herself around and swung her leg over Tom's, pulling herself up on his lap until she was comfortably straddling him. She leaned into him and ran the tip of her tongue up the length of the tattoo, tasting the slight saltiness of his skin, and finished with a light bite on his neck.

"That answer your question, Thomas Eugene Paris?" she breathed into his ear, wrapping her arms around his neck and lightly rubbing her breasts against his chest.

Tom smiled broadly at her now, that blinding, totally genuine, supernova smile that still, after almost six years together, could cause B'Elanna's breath to hitch in her throat.

"Yes. Yes, it does."

He cupped her face with both hands and looked deep into her eyes before lowering his mouth to hers for a deep kiss. Before their lips touched he whispered, softly, the two Klingon words that had shaped his life, both their lives: "JiH dok ..."

And her response, when they eventually broke apart: "Maj dok..."

They did not speak again that night, as they instead sought and found within each other's bodies the reassurance and affirmation that words so often failed.

…..

"We'll be coming out of warp in five minutes, sir." Marc O'Reilly's voice, confident and professional, came from the conn. "Three billion kilometers from destination."

Cran's astrometrics team had unearthed an old star chart, predating the Federation, that showed the same yellow dwarf star Harry's sensors had detected but, due to the unsophisticated telemetry of the day, no planets at all had been recorded. She took the absence of a useful finding as a personal affront, and after reporting had left the bridge in something like a professional huff. The rest of the bridge staff was faring little better; the absence of concrete information in the face of what was potentially at stake was taking its toll on almost everyone.

"When you do get there, slow to one-quarter impulse. I'd like to have a good look around before we commit ourselves to anything," Riker responded to the helmsman. He turned to the Ops console for the sixth or so time, knowing the answer before posing the question. "Anything yet?"

Harry Kim shook his head. "Not from inside the warp field, sir. The recalibrations we need to make to circumvent the cloaking can only be done in normal space, even with the new sensor array."

Riker gave a frustrated sigh, while Tom hid a smile behind his hand. He understood the Captain's frustration and eagerness – felt it himself, in fact – but admired Harry's restraint in providing the very obvious answer. If it had been him asking the same question of his best friend, he would have doubtless worn it, senior officer or not.

He turned to the Captain, speaking in a low voice so as not to unnecessarily alarm the bridge crew. "We may need to prepare for entry into whatever atmosphere this planet has, in order to get under the cloak and be able to collect comprehensive data. If there is a net of cloaking satellites, like B'Elanna suspects, it will act like a Faraday cage; nothing in, nothing out - unless you have the technology to cut through it. The only exception is a distress signal, and there are very good reasons for the prohibition on using those for anything other than what they're meant for, so we can't reverse engineer that."

Riker nodded slowly. The implications were clear. In order to collect the necessary information, not only would the Enterprise have to fly through unknown atmospheric conditions, but she would also be exposed to whatever defence systems might be in place on a previously unknown planet, kept deliberately hidden from view – possibly for decades. And close to Romulan space at that, with all that entailed. Conditions would be at red alert all the way.

"You think he should be the one to fly in …" Will pointed his chin towards O'Reilly. "Yes," Tom replied firmly. "I'm sure he can do it. And if he's never done an atmosphere dip before, there's no better way to figure out how than flying by the seat of your pants." He gave a lop-sided grin at his Captain.

"I did my first starship landing absolutely cold, totally terrified. Classic swan maneuver – I probably looked like I was gliding serenely at the top, but in reality was paddling like fuck underneath. But hearing Captain Janeway say 'nice flying, Mr. Paris' afterwards - it made me feel like Voyager was really _mine_, you know? Every pilot deserves that feeling. So I'll be happy to look over Marc's shoulder if you're really worried, but I'll be doing it from this chair. Otherwise we may as well keep him in his quarters for the rest of the mission, and you'll be out a First Officer."

Slightly taken aback by the vehemence of his XO's response, Riker nodded his assent. He remembered the days when he was responsible for crew assignments, schedules, and career development, but didn't recall ever putting quite that much thought into their individual psychological well-being as Tom Paris apparently did. Well, it seemed to work for him, at least so far. O'Reilly had already come a long way since Paris had stepped on board.

"Coming out of warp … NOW."

"View screen?" "Is on, sir. Nothing there except the planets we know about. The cloak over the moon seems to be holding. And it is a moon rather than a planetoid, that we can confirm now."

Tom turned to Harry, and gave him a nod. Harry made the necessary adjustments, and before the eyes of the bridge officers, a small portion of the space before them seemed to … lose cohesion, and blur. Where there had been just nothing before, now there was a visible _absence of something _instead, a spherical area without stars. An improvement, however incremental.

"Sensors detect no major energy signatures or man-made objects in the field of interest," Jorak announced in his usual clipped tones.

"Permission to approach and go for a dive?" Tom asked the Captain. Riker nodded, and Tom walked over to O'Reilly. Putting his hand on the pilot's shoulder in a gesture unconsciously copied from one that had sustained him through seven long years, he explained what he and Riker had discussed. O'Reilly gave his XO a long questioning look, to which Tom responded with a crisp, encouraging nod before returning to his seat. "He'll do fine," he whispered to Riker. "You'll see."

As they approached the planet and its invisible moon, something occurred to Tom. "Harry," he said, with just a touch of child-like eagerness in his voice. "Do you remember that … that big fish finder gizmo we used in Chapter Seventeen, _The_ _Creatures of the Abyss?_" Non-plussed, Harry wrinkled his brow before breaking into a big, toothy smile. He nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, of course – the echo sounding system. I wonder …"

"Exactly!" Tom slapped the side of his chair with his hand before doing the same to his comm badge. "Paris to Torres. B'Elanna, can you come to the bridge? We need a touch of your magic up here."

"Care to enlighten us all, you two?" Riker asked with a tinge of amusement in his voice. He had already discovered that the two officers in tandem – or even better, reinforced by the Chief Engineer – seemed to constitute a think tank capable of generating the most brilliantly unorthodox solutions to a variety of problems, including some that seemed to come from ninety degrees of any reality known to mankind. And he had of course heard how, during his own involuntary confinement on Andor, Tom and Harry had used a twentieth-century device to briefly circumvent the Andorians' comms blackout during the siege of the Enterprise. If this was another example of his senior officers using glorified bongo sticks to outfox twenty-fourth century technological sophistication, he was not about to knock it.

"Sorry, Captain," Tom said. "This is a thing the Germans came up with during the First World War on 20th century Earth; they called it _echolot_. Basically it bounces sound waves off … well, at first it was only metallic objects, via a transducer. It pings the direction where you are looking for something, and you can figure out whether there's something there, depending on whether or how soon the sound comes back."

Harry interjected. "You can also tell by the type of the ping what it is the sound is bouncing off of. Later the technology was refined to track all sorts of objects, including fish. Sports fishers used it, if they were too impatient just to wait for fish to put in an appearance. Cheating, really. Anyway, it's the precursor to much of our current sensor technology, but extremely basic."

Tom picked up the thread again. "As our friend Seven of Nine would say, 'crude but effective'. And because it is so rudimentary and doesn't work over interspatial distances, the Romulans' cloaking technology may not shield against it. Now if we find three of the cloaking devices, we should be able to develop a base algorithm for their likely dispersal, right?" He looked to Jorak for confirmation, getting a nod from the Vulcan in return.

Just as B'Elanna came on the bridge, O'Reilly asked from the conn, "And you think you can use this … echo technology to find something on the_ moon?_ That would have to be one hell of a ping, no?"

"Not stuff on the moon, Marc. The satellites. I've been giving it some more thought, and I believe B'Elanna's original idea was right: In order to cloak a mass of that size, you pretty well must have an orbital network of cloaking devices, all linked together. If we can find just half a dozen of those and tractor them in, it should disturb the field enough that we can penetrate it with the rest of our sensors without the Romulans noticing a thing from underneath, unless they happen to be staring directly at the hole."

Tom's enthusiasm was catching; even Jorak started to look more thoughtful than skeptical, although skepticism won out in the end. "How do you propose to get around the fact that sound does not travel through a vacuum, sir?"

Tom's responding grin bordered on smugness. "By getting rid of the vacuum, of course. Think outside the box, Commander. If we vent a wee bit of plasma, even dispersed widely, we should be able to get and trace bounce-backs. We may be using a 20th century idea, but that doesn't mean we need to use 20th century pick-up. We should be able to crank up the volume much higher than they could in the Olden Days, and get much better resolve."

B'Elanna, who had listened to Tom's theory, nodded her affirmation. "Yes, that makes sense. We should be able to dumb down our sensors enough to create a simple echo effect, and at the same time adjust our receptors for minimal molecular density."

She went over to the engineering console, where the duty ensign readily cleared a space for her superior but stood by in case assistance was required, and to learn something. The Chief Engineer punched a few quick commands, then looked over at Harry Kim. "Harry, if you can route some additional power to the deflectors now, and reconfigure .."

"I'm on it," Harry said. He had been busy at his own console ever since the first exchange with Tom about their old Proton adventure. Tom shook his head fondly. His best friend and his wife never ceased to amaze him in their ability to read, and leap over, each other's thoughts as they ran towards solutions to problems that would have stymied any half dozen endowed fellows at the Daystrom Centre.

"You online?" Harry asked. "Yep, ready to go," came B'Elanna's response. "I'll go back to Engineering and get ready for venting. Now all we need to do is get close enough for Tom's _ping_ to resonate, and if there's anything there, we'll find it."

"Including, I trust, any potential alien vessels?" Jorak interjected. "We are, after all, in the Neutral Zone and it can be assumed that if the planetoid is protected by Romulan technology, there may be Romulan ships around."

"If there are, I do hope we don't get close enough to one of those for Tom's _ping_ to work," Riker remarked. "If it's any comfort, I should think they would make their presence known well before then," Tom supplied. "Recommend yellow alert regardless, at least."

"Agreed. _Yellow alert_."

"Coming in range of the planet's ionosphere; distance to surface 1,500 kilometres." O'Reilly's voice from the conn betrayed a slight tension, but was otherwise professional and calm. "We're in, sir."

Tom looked over at the Ops console. "Activate … what are we calling this? '_Tom's ping_' doesn't exactly ... resonate."

Harry rolled his eyes at his XO and best friend and worked the console with nimble fingers. Only moments later, he slammed his hand down in triumph. "I don't think we need to call it anything, beyond 'wildly successful'. We got one already."

"I liked the 'fish finder' idea, personally," Riker remarked. "Pull it in and let's see what we hooked. Riker to Engineering, first cloaking satellite is coming into …" "Cargo Bay 3," Harry confirmed.

"You got that, Engineering? Cargo Bay 3." "Acknowledged, sir. We're on our way."

The Captain nodded to Harry. "Let's do some more fishing."

A mere forty-five minutes later, the Enterprise had brought in three more of the cloaking devices; Engineering reported that they had been left partially activated. With any luck, the operators of the grid would not notice that the devices had essentially been removed from active service in their original location.

Minutes later Jorak had successfully extrapolated the location of the entire grid, and verified his findings by accurately locating two or three more of the satellite devices, which they left in place. "Astonishing," he said, looking up from his screen. "If these calculations are correct, the moon is surrounded by over 147,000 individual cloaking devices."

Harry whistled. "Someone must have had a very big and busy replicator or three."

"Someone must want to be hiding this place pretty desperately," Tom replied softly. "Wonder what's down there … Marc, bring us into the space created by our four absent little fishes, and let's have a look."

"Aye sir. Entering atmosphere, dropping to 900 km above surface. Holding orbit."

"Ops, keep scanning for repeats of the distress signal we heard. Harry …"

"I'm on it, Tom. Sorry. I'm on it, _sir_."

Tom cast his best friend an amused look, but refrained from commenting. They were both still getting used to their respective positions on board the Enterprise, and while Tom had at least officially outranked Harry for most of their journey through the Delta Quadrant, his position as XO seemed – to Harry at least – command a bit more formality on duty than had ever existed between them. Tom still found it odd to be addressed by him as _sir_, but had reconciled himself to it after Harry promised him to 'drop the act' when they were not on the bridge. Keeping things straight had presented more of a challenge than Harry had foreseen, though, and he slipped up regularly, to Tom's vast entertainment.

With the Enterprise dipping down below the grid and the instruments benefitting from the weakening in the cloaking field caused by the missing satellites, Harry and Jorak were able to collect a fair bit of information about the mysterious moon. Neither, however, found any residual trace of the distress signal. What they were able to do, though, was to project images of the moon's topography on the main view screen.

Albeit blurry, the picture resolved into a world that seemed dominated by salt water and one major land mass – at least on the side now facing the Enterprise – which seemed largely sandy and brown in colour, as if the entire continent was a vast desert. A series of small islands on the Southern tip, strung out like pearls, seemed to be the only places where there were smudges of green to be seen.

"Not very hospitable looking," Harry muttered to himself. He made a few adjustments to his instruments. "The atmosphere is M-class, breathable, but with a distinctly reduced quantity of nucleogenic particles. A bit like the Ocampan homeworld, Tom – err, Commander. A desert, basically, despite all the water."

Tom leaned forward in his chair, and stared intently at his screen "You're right, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence of catastrophic intervention." Once the Caretaker had told them about the mistake he and his partner had made on the Ocampan world, Voyager's sensors had easily spotted the traces of the cataclysm that had caused most rainfall to cease for over a millennium. The world that stretched beneath them, by contrast, simply seemed naturally bereft of one of the attributes enjoyed by most M-class bodies.

"Any signs of habitation on that string of islands?" Riker asked, his calm voice almost masking the eagerness betrayed by the rhythmic manner in which he stroked his beard. "Or any transmission traces? That area definitely looks the most promising."

"Nothing so far." Harry Kim's voice was tight with concentration as his fingers continued to dance across the ops console.

A chirp of the comms system was followed by the voice of B'Elanna Torres, who had gone to Cargo Bay Three to inspect the cloaking devices the Enterprise had tractored in. They were surprisingly small, as it had turned out, only about the size of a human fist – ideal for the mass replication that would permit the creation of a network on this extensive a scale.

"Captain, Torres here. We've done a preliminary analysis of the satellites, and the technology is intriguing. Essentially, they each contain a miniature cloaking device that seems to have two separate functions – to hook into the grid, and to cloak the satellite itself. Quite brilliant, really. Too bad that the Federation is prohibited from having these things; I could see all sorts of uses for them."

Riker smiled, a little grimly. So could he, few of them good. "Thanks, B'Elanna. Just make sure that your little … exploration doesn't trigger any alarm bells down on the planet, okay?"

"Captain, Commander," Jorak's clipped tones as usual betrayed no emotion whatsoever. "I am detecting a minute amount of plasma explosive residue at the Southern tip of the largest island."

"The one that looks like it ends in a lobster claw?" Tom scrunched his face up in concentration. His eyes had always been sharper than most people's – a gift for any pilot - and with the image still excessively pixilated, he tried to compensate for the problem by squinting and letting his eyes go blurry. "Yes, there it is. Do you see it? There's something like a little smudge on the northern part of the claw.."

"Yes, I've got it," the ops officer confirmed. "And according to my instruments, this is also the source of the plasma residue Jorak mentioned."

Harry made a few adjustments, and the image on the screen magnified. Although still indistinct, the scene started to resolve into a square outlined area, with solid structures at the corner of each square and midway along each of the sides. A number of larger, more solid shapes were located inside the square, in two lines, with the two largest in the centre. A couple of additional structures could be seen just outside the perimeter.

"Wonder what that is," Harry mumbled to himself, even as O'Reilly remarked from the conn, "I'm reading plenty of energy signatures now, mostly Romulan origin but not all. It seems like a blend of stuff, including … some … Federation?" He cast his puzzlement as a near question, but elicited no responses; everyone seemed more focused on the emerging image. Jorak merely raised an eyebrow and nodded his affirmation of Harry's and O'Reilly's findings.

Harry continued his monologue undeterred. "Something down there is generating and using a lot of power. And it appears to be fully functional, despite the evidence of a recent explosion."

The conn officer took up the thread of his own reporting, voicing everyone's thoughts as he turned around. "But Captain - I didn't think anyone was permitted to build inside the Neutral Zone."

"They aren't," Riker said firmly. "Whatever that is down there, it's not supposed to be here. Which presumably explains the cloak. But they did send a distress signal, so we are not only within our rights, we're _obliged_ to go have a look. Tom? What …"

He turned to his XO, who had remained silent, but had risen from his chair to take a closer look at the screen; the movement seemed to be beyond his own volition, as if he was pulled by unseen strings. Deanna Troi's head shot up, and she looked at Tom Paris with sudden wide-eyed concern, as his fists clenched by his sides so tightly the knuckles were turning white.

"I know what that is," Tom said softly. "I'd recognize that architecture anywhere."

Not looking at anyone in particular, but rather at something far away – and not on the screen - he said, in a voice stripped of all expression,

"It's a prison."


	4. On the Outside, Looking In

**Chapter 4 – On the Outside, Looking In **

"Guard towers. Perimeter security. Prisoner housing." Tom Paris' finger stabbed at each feature on the screen as he spoke, in an unusually clipped tone. "Different groupings of accommodations – likely segregating different classes of prisoners. You know, cooperative, non-compliant, dangerous …"

He pointed out the perimeter fences – there were likely more than one; it was hard to tell as the cloaks continued to interfere with image resolution. The guard towers, eight in total, which probably also held force field generators. The buildings inside the perimeter. Rows of cellblocks? Dorms? The larger buildings would hold such things as admin offices, an infirmary, maybe a courthouse - although out here the latter was doubtful.

"And these …" he pointed out the buildings outside the perimeter, "accommodations, mess hall and rec facilities for prison staff. It's all there."

He did not mention interrogation facilities, nor facilities for the administration of discipline, both likely features of a Romulan penal institution. There were things best left unspoken, until the need to speak of them arose.

A chill went down Tom's spine as he remembered two days in an airless room with screaming accusers, blinding lights, no sleep or food, threats – mostly about what his failure to confess would mean for his younger companion, once they had figured out what would get to their detainee, and what would not. The unbearable pain of a device being implanted in his head.

Tom Paris forced himself to breathe deeply and evenly as he cast a quick look at his best friend, Harry Kim. Harry looked up from the Ops console to find Tom's blue eyes locked on him; the unspoken memory flowed between them.

For Tom Paris, Akritiri had been his second foray into life as a prisoner, not counting his detention on Banea. In many ways Akritiri had been more hellish than Auckland, but as far as he was concerned, far less personal. The viciousness of life at the bottom of the chute had come from the system that created it and the devices implanted into the prisoners, not from the people who inhabited it. And so, apart from the lingering revulsion at a society and a political system that would generate such a place, he had been able to file it in his memory banks as just another nasty Delta Quadrant experience – survived, dealt with and shelved under 'don't need to look at that anymore', except as a milestone in his friendship with Harry.

Unlike Auckland.

_Auckland. _Tom quickly suppressed that particular thought, clamped down on it with the experience of years of doing just that and summoned the mask of unconcern he had shown to Kathryn Janeway on that day in the New Zealand sun, so long ago now.

For Harry Kim, on the other hand, the experience of Akritiri was still raw, for a great number of personal reasons, and so Tom tried to send a silent message of reassurance to his best friend in a tiny nod, a slight narrowing of the eyes. _We're good, Harry. You're good._

Harry gave a small, grateful smile in return and found his voice. With a casualness he did not feel, calculated to fool all but Tom Paris and perhaps the Counselor, he said, "I wonder what a Romulan prison camp is like on the inside."

Tom turned to Riker. "Personally, I don't. My detailed anthropological studies of differing methods of detention are complete, as far as I'm concerned. And in case anyone cares, all things considered I prefer the relative serenity of a Starfleet brig. But I do wonder whom they're keeping down there, and why. And why whoever sent the distress signal was calling rather specifically for Federation help."

He took a deep breath, almost forcing out the words. "I guess we'll have to go down there to find all that out. Shall I ready an away team, Captain?"

Riker glanced an unspoken question at Deanna Troi, who had been holding herself very still during the wordless exchange between Harry and Tom. The half-Betazoid's black eyes locked with the blue ones of her _imzadi_, and she gave a nearly imperceptible headshake, almost more a sideways flicker of the eyes. Riker understood. He also understood that he could not give voice to that understanding; not here – not on the bridge.

"No Tom, I think I'd like you to stay up here with the ship. I'll go down myself. I think in light of the possibly rather enormous political complications we're facing here we're better off playing the rank game. I'll need you up here in case we get unwanted company."

He paused for a minute to think things through. "Also, I want to take B'Elanna so she can have a look at the technical make-up of the facilities; you know we can't have both of you on the same mission. Jorak, Henley and Dr. Crusher will make up the rest of the team; we'll take the Flyer. You have the bridge, Number One."

Riker rose from his chair even as Deanna's eyes flashed her gratitude and approval at her husband's approach. It would obviously have been advantageous to have her on the team as well, but then one of the reasons for keeping Tom off it would not have held.

Harry shouted after the Captain's retreating form, "Remember to tell the away team to change uniforms for hot weather protocol, sir. It's a scorcher down there."

…..

With Sue Henley at the helm, the Flyer's descent to the cloaked moon went as smoothly as Riker could have hoped for. She was one of the most experienced pilots in Starfleet with the new shuttle, and Riker congratulated himself once more for his foresight at recruiting so many of the personnel formerly assigned to USS Voyager. Even the less senior and non-academy trained officers, like Ensigns Henley and Mulcahy, were beyond seasoned; nothing at all appeared to faze them, and their readiness to embrace an onboard community as if they were family meant that they acted as positive influences for team-building purposes. A package beyond a Captain's wildest dreams.

Some of Riker's fellow Captains had shaken their heads at his deliberate effort to court former 'Voyagers', especially those of the ship's crew who had been with the Maquis: Torres, Ayala, Henley. Tom Paris, arguably. But in addition to these officers' experience, their unique perspective on all things Starfleet had appealed to Riker. None of the Maquis had come to Starfleet through rose-coloured childhood stories. They had learned its ways by necessity and stayed with it out of conviction; their commitment was all the more genuine for the hard way in which it had been earned.

As for Sue Henley herself, she had been trained in the operation of the Flyer by its designer, Tom Paris, and had flown it regularly for the better part of two years, before anyone in Starfleet had ever seen as much as a picture of the shuttle that was now being phased in as the new Fleet standard. The pilot in Riker felt a stab of jealousy at the familiarity and ease with which she handled its unique controls; one of these days he really had to drag Tom off to the holodeck and fly a few sims with the thing.

Dr. Beverly Crusher was seated in the aft section of the cabin, and kept herself occupied going over emergency evac proceedings. With the distress signal having been cut off so abruptly and evidence of an explosion remaining, she had her nursing staff prepare Sickbay for multiple casualties. When she was satisfied that all was in place, she called up the "Essentials of Romulan Physiology" on her PADD. She had treated Romulans before, under Picard, but it had been a while. Fortunately, they were closely related to Vulcans with whom she dealt regularly, and a brush-up would suffice for her to feel confident of her ability to carry out any necessary triage.

B'Elanna Torres, for her part, quietly checked over a number of readings, calibrating the Flyer's instruments to compensate for a variety of potentially disruptive energy bursts. Anyone who had gone to such great length to conceal this detention facility could be expected to have other defensive systems in place, and the last thing she wanted was for the Flyer's multi-phasic shielding to be compromised.

Jorak was all business at the ops console, routing his findings on the local topography to the helm, while conducting regular instrument sweeps to ensure that the Flyer had not acquired any cloaked shadows. To his – unvoiced – satisfaction, their descent to the island proceeded without disruption.

Until they were hailed from the surface. The universal translator picked up the incoming language as Romulan.

"This is Mokan Duty Station, welcome back, Ares. You are cleared to land; coordinates herewith. Mokan out."

Riker replied. "Thank you Mokan. This is not the Ares, this is the shuttle Flyer One of the USS Enterprise. We intercepted a distress call and have come to determine who may require our assistance."

Neutral Zone politics required that he justify his presence with as many fig leaves as he could come up with, and Riker felt compelled to layer them a bit, for maximum opacity. "Unfortunately there are energy forces at play that seem to interfere with our main instruments, so we considered it necessary to bring a shuttle into the atmosphere rather than hail you from our ship. Request permission to land so we can conduct our investigation."

There. That should set the cat among the pigeons. Now the Romulans knew not only that their illegal operation had been discovered, but that there was a Federation starship in orbit that would by now have transmitted its existence back to Headquarters. No surprises, then, for anyone. Most importantly, though, the reference to the distress signal would provide both sides with an excuse for diplomatic cordiality, in the face of a blatant treaty violation by Romulus and the entry into forbidden space by Starfleet's flagship.

Let the station commander figure out how to respond.

Riker nodded at Henley to continue with the landing sequence and muted the comm link. He muttered to himself, "Now why would they sound like they're expecting us? Or someone whose signature looks sufficiently like ours that they get them confused?"

"I sincerely doubt that they were expecting a crew from the Enterprise, Captain." Jorak was his usual slightly supercilious self, failing to recognize the rhetorical nature of Riker's question. "Logic would dictate that personnel on the ground might have experience with a shuttle of similar configuration as the Flyer. Since there are still relatively few vessels of this type in operation, they could reasonably expect this vessel to be the one with which they are familiar."

It was moments like this when Riker most missed his new XO. Despite the relatively short time he and Tom Paris had worked together, they had found an easy rhythm in which they could complete one another's thoughts or bat ideas back and forth. Having someone restate the obvious, as Jorak was wont to do while he worked through the logic of a particular situation, was not something the Captain considered particularly … useful. He resisted the temptation to whisper "duh" – a habit of Tom's that was rapidly rubbing off on him – and opened a secure channel to the Enterprise.

"Riker to Paris. Tom, it looks like the locals have seen something like the Flyer before and in fact were expecting it. Given our tasking I highly doubt they'd be 'Fleet. Can you have someone check the database for other models in circulation? The name 'Ares' was mentioned."

"Acknowledged, Captain. Can't be that many; I was told my own prototype is one of very few in private hands. We'll keep an eye out for incoming traffic, too, since they were expecting company. Paris out." Riker closed the comm link and gave a small, satisfied nod. Now that was more like it.

He watched with more interest than usual as Henley keyed in the landing sequence and brought the Flyer down at the coordinates provided by the station – provided before they had identified themselves as a Federation vessel. Riker somehow suspected that this was a hasty step the local dispatch operator had already come to regret. Apart from the initial mistaken welcome, the local Romulans had not reopened the hailing channel. Instead, they appeared to be still mulling over what to do with their unexpected guests, who were within their right under the Treaty of Algeron to investigate the distress call.

Given the unknown reception, Henley would stay with the shuttle, transporter locked on the away team and her fingers on the button. Comm links would remain open throughout.

"Jorak?" Beverley Crusher's voice cut through the momentary silence. "Before we land could you check for bio signs?" Riker slammed his flat hand on the side of his chair. _Of course. Should have thought of this as soon as we broke through the Faraday cage. _

The tactical officer nodded his acknowledgement, tapping commands into his console. He looked up with something as close to a frown as Riker had ever seen on him. "Captain, Doctor, I read a total of 738 life signs in this facility. Mostly Romulan and Reman. But also two hundred and forty-eight Cardassians. And unless my instruments are mistaken, four humans."

"Humans?" the Captain's head flew up. "How …"

"All life forms of one species are located in close proximity to one another. In fact, apart from a number of Romulan life signs dispersed throughout the facility, the population seems to be segregated by species. The pervasive presence of Romulans would be consistent with guards moving around the prison."

Riker would have liked more time to digest this information as the Flyer set down; instead he asked Jorak to transmit it to the Enterprise. Clearly this prison camp was of a more complex nature than they had considered: Romulan cloaking technology; human, Cardassian and Reman life signs inside the complex; familiarity with the latest Federation shuttle design; traces of Federation technology on site …

He relayed the information to the Enterprise. This was a good time for Paris and Deanna to put their thinking caps on from a distance, while he and his team would definitely need to be … subtle.

A small jolt signaled the Flyer's landing. After reconfirming Henley's instructions, Riker directed the away team to disembark. No time like the present…

The sight that met the Enterprise's officers as they exited the shuttle would be forever etched into their minds. B'Elanna's throat went a little dry as she considered just why her mate had been so quick to recognize the structure that had puzzled the rest of the bridge crew, and how close she had once come to spending a significant part of her own life inside a place like it.

The Flyer had set down on a small landing pad approximately a hundred meters away from a structure that reminded Riker of nothing so much as an ancient fortress, albeit with 24th century modifications. The complex was already shimmering in the heat despite the early morning hour, the mirage effect giving it an air of unreality.

The guard towers that Tom had remarked on from orbit were some twenty meters high, topped with small plasma cannons mounted on platforms that provided 360 degree mobility. Two of the guns were pointed directly at the Flyer. A quick sweep of Jorak's tricorder confirmed that one of the cannons, at the far side of the facility, had recently been fired; likely the source of the explosive residue Harry's sensors had detected. Through the windows of each of the towers they could see shadowed movement, as well as glinting reflections that suggested telescopes - and possibly additional weapons - were trained on the unexpected arrivals.

The facility's perimeter, they could see now, was outlined by fences made of a steel mesh that looked strong, while at the same time being sufficiently porous to offer little resistance to the gusty, hot wind that was blowing in from the sea even on this otherwise sunny day. There were three distinct fences actually, creating two corridors between them that were approximately five metres wide and barren of anything but sand. The steel wire shimmered in the sun; a refraction in the spacing in between the mesh made the whole construct appear slightly opaque. The opacity suggested it supported some kind of force field of unknown technological specifications, likely anchored in the guard towers. B'Elanna eyed the set-up with professional interest, even as she shivered slightly despite the heat.

Each of the three fences was topped with numerous coils of razor wire – nasty-looking stuff that Riker figured was intended as a low-tech back-up, in the event the force field failed. The shimmering opacity of the force field made it impossible to get a clear sense of the structures inside; only vague outlines could be seen, and no apparent movement, apart from that inside the guard towers.

From the slightly higher vantage point of the Flyer's landing site, the Enterprise crew did, however, get a good glimpse of the surrounding landscape – arid, rocky hills, covered with sparse vegetation that in turn seemed dominated by succulents and low, scrub-like underbrush. The occasional dip in the hills afforded a glimpse of the deep blue sea and the distant shore on the other side of the bay. A small jetty with a couple of speedboats with clearly outlined gun turrets could just be seen behind a rock outcropping.

Small, scaly four-legged creatures that could have been relatives of Terran lizards or geckos were darting in and out of the shrubbery, or sunning themselves in their hundreds on rocks in the blazing heat. The humming of flying insects permeated the silence; the lizards seemed content to wait until one came within striking range of a sticky blue tongue, or a quick movement of the head and a snapping jaw. Occasionally, one of the lizards would venture under the fence in search of crawling prey – the smaller ones quite successfully so, but Riker and Beverley both winced as they watched a larger specimen get seared by the force field with an ominous buzzing sound and a spray of sparks. It twitched briefly and died, a blackened, shriveled mass. _Thanks for the demonstration,_ Riker thought regretfully. _Remind me not to try that …"_

As he was finishing that thought, the main gate opened and a group of five humanoids emerged. Even at the distance they were easily identifiable as Romulan, all male, dressed in a somewhat lighter and more climate-appropriate version of the traditional quilted Romulan uniform jacket. As they approached, Beverley and B'Elanna quickly finished running their tricorders over the facility.

B'Elanna's eyes widened slightly as she looked at the last set of data on the small screen. She touched her hand to Riker's arm. "Captain – something you should know before those guys get here." He inclined his head slightly, so that his rather short Chief Engineer would not have to speak loud enough to be overheard by the rapidly approaching group. "Yes?" he asked softly.

"My tricorder … I ran it over that force field. I've never seen anything like it before, the way it fried that lizard thing, but the EM emissions themselves are consistent with Federation technology. Similar to the non-lethal force fields we use around the ship, only … amplified. Not sure if that means they are Federation-sourced, but they certainly are related. I thought you should know."

"Thanks, B'Elanna. Let's just add that to the mysteries of this place that need to be investigated, shall we?" Riker responded in equally low tones. "I'm making a list. Suggest you do the same."

The apparent greeting committee approached with quick, decisive steps and the away team did not get the opportunity to speak again before the Romulans came within earshot. Four of the men appeared to be of lower rank - uhlans or sub-lieutenants at best - although all were carrying what appeared to be phaser rifles of Romulan design.

They clearly deferred to the fifth man, whose uniform was of a darker, plainer material and who carried himself with an air of arrogant authority mixed in with … resentment, or was it resignation? As well he might – Riker thought that the posting to an invisible, largely uninhabited planetoid in an officially closed region of space had to be at or near the bottom of what Romulan Empire had to offer in terms of professional opportunities. Quite possibly, the man walking towards them was the embodiment of a once promising career coming to a rather inglorious end; it sure as hell wasn't a patronage appointment.

"And what brings the Federation's_ flagship_ into the Neutral Zone?" the Romulan asked by way of introduction, signaling that he had done a spot of research into his visitors on their descent. His inflection lacked heat, even though it was clearly intended to convey a challenge; Riker certainly noted that the man certainly did not seem to possess that innate air of superiority most Romulans oozed out of every pore. Either the man was not very good at dealing with the unexpected, or not very certain of his position and a lousy dissembler. His skin, sallow and pale despite the unrelenting sun overhead, suggested that he spent as little time as he could out in the open.

"Captain William Riker, of the USS Enterprise. These are Lieutenant Commanders Torres and Jorak, and our Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Beverley Crusher. As we advised from orbit, we received a distress call from this location," Riker responded, schooling his voice into cool, neutral tones. "You will of course appreciate that, as I noted, your particular … location and certain … technological challenges make it rather difficult to assess the situation from orbit."

He concluded his remarks with one of his more studiedly wolfish smiles, displaying his impressive canines with patent insincerity. Dealing with Romulans in general, and in or around the Neutral Zone especially, called for a certain amount of posture at the best of times; Riker had learned his craft from Jean-Luc Picard, the Grand Master of the politely delivered veiled threat. That, and over two decades of serious poker.

Riker continued to smile, somewhat more superciliously now. "You will of course know that the Treaty of Algeron permits - and customary inter-galactic law requires - that a ship who receives a distress call in _unclaimed or uninhabited space _investigate such calls and, where possible, act to preserve life." He paused once more and smiled again, even more broadly if that were possible, and raised an eyebrow. "So – just how can we be of assistance, Commander …?"

The Romulan's eyes shifted slightly. "Talar," he said brusquely, "Commander Talar." He did not bother to introduce the guards, whose lowly rank in the Romulan military establishment clearly deprived them of any entitlement to even minimal courtesy. "And we require no assistance."

"But the distress call?" Jorak promoted with a raised eyebrow. "Explain."

Talar glared at him for the effrontery of his tone, then proceeded to address himself to the Captain as if the Vulcan officer were a gnat whose insignificant little buzz must not be allowed to disrupt the dialogue of equals. Riker thought, rather inconsequentially, that Talar should consider equipping himself with a blue, sticky tongue to keep his underlings in line periodically.

"Nothing to concern you. The facility here on Mokan houses a number of the Imperium's more dangerous and sophisticated criminals. One of them, a … Reman, succeeded in creating a subspace transmitter out of materials provided to him by a corrupt guard." Talar seemed a bit more energized now. "You, Captain Riker, will appreciate this: The individual concerned was a follower of Praetor Shinzon's. I seem to recall that your ship … played a role in foiling the Praetor's attempt to take over the Imperium."

_You could say that, _Riker thought drily. All the more reason why he did not believe for a second the assertion that it was a Reman who had specifically sought Federation assistance. Perhaps Talar's people had not actually heard the call before disrupting it with the plasma cannon, and didn't know about that detail?

But before he could complete that thought, the Romulan Commander surprised him by motioning him aside. His voice assumed a more conciliatory, almost ingratiating tone as soon as his and the Captain's subordinates were outside of hearing range.

"So, Captain, you and I both know that this alleged distress call is not the only – or even the real - reason you are here, regardless of what your crew may have been led to believe. Your need not pretend that your proximity was an accident; it was only a question of time when Starfleet would avail itself of our facilities here. We are both busy men, so let us cut through the formalities. Tell me whom you came to drop off, let us come to terms, and you can be on your way."

Riker's mind went into overdrive. _Whom you came to drop off. _Talar had mistaken the Flyer for something called the Ares. A ship originating in the Federation. Just what kind of person might such a ship have wanted to drop off?

If he betrayed his ignorance and surprise, he would certainly not get any meaningful answers from the Romulan Commander - even if he could ask questions directly. And Talar would obviously not be offering him a tour of the camp.

_Stall. _Pretend to know more than you do. __"You are a wise man, Commander. Yes, our proximity was no accident. And yes, word of this … facility is getting around in certain circles."

If only he could speak to someone inside, preferably one of the humans.

_Inside._

Why did the name 'Tom Paris' suddenly pop into his head?

Tom Paris. The man whose reaction to the mere sight of this facility had so disturbed Deanna that she had practically pleaded with her _imzadi_ to keep him off the away team? The man who had seen the inside of more prisons and temporary detention centers than anyone else serving in Starfleet … and survived them all.

Who bore the mark of his experience, visible to all.

An idea was beginning to take shape in the Captain's head, coming into focus and crystallizing more and more clearly. He decided to gamble; he could always pull back later. Talar expected a drop-off …

_A drop-off requires a backstory, one that had to be at least partially verifiable …_

Riker pasted the insincere smile back on his face. "Walk with me a ways, Commander?" Beverly and B'Elanna looked at him non-plussed, while Jorak raised an eyebrow as their Captain pulled Talar aside and headed away from the group.

The extra steps bought some more time for thought. "I didn't really think it would be this hot here. Our last mission was quite a climatic contrast to this place." They came to a halt, backs to the rest of the away team.

"We had business on Andoria a few days ago, Commander. The Imperial succession announcement - news must have reached even this … far corner of the Imperium. But I'm afraid in the process we picked up a … rather delicate problem. A question of … certain rather indiscrete dealings involving the heir to the throne. Only snippets of the real story made the news, of course; in fact, the public side of the whole matter was dealt with rather … efficiently and effectively by the Andorians."

Talar nodded his understanding sagely, his lips quirking a smile that vied with Riker's for mendaciousness. Cover-ups involving senior members of the leadership cadre and their families were not entirely unknown on Romulus.

"The trial and conviction were according to the book, _of course,_" Riker looked at the Romulan meaningfully, "even if they were conducted somewhat outside the public eye. Following the trial I undertook to take … the problem back to Earth as a personal favour to the late Chancellor, to have the individual concerned serve his sentence away from where his presence would be a reminder of the … embarrassment he had caused to the Royal family."

He sighed with feigned exasperation. "But now that Chancellor Erdilev is so unfortunately deceased … Let's just say, it occurred to me that when we get back to Terra, the man's lawyers are going to have a field day with the conviction. His family is well connected and can afford to make my life hell. And if he gets out, I'll be left holding the bag with the Andorian Government. Unless we could find a way …"

Riker let the thought dangle and float between them like bait, shiny and light, dancing in the hot breeze. This far from the Imperium, opportunities for temptation – and business - would be rare, and hard to resist; the invitation to deal had practically been delivered by Talar on an embossed card.

The Romulan Commander stood quite still, his shoulders straightening, a calculating look stealing into his eyes. "We … could be making space for one more individual," he said, his voice bordering on sly now. "Of course, if he is not a part of the regular drop-off, there is the issue of … maintenance expenses."

"Of course," Riker smiled mirthlessly, allowing all remaining warmth to drain from his eyes even as he inclined his head to signal his understanding of the unspoken message. "And that would be …?"

The Romulan Commander looked at him speculatively. "Three bars of gold-pressed latinum."

Riker frowned and pursed his lips in denial. _Can't seem too eager. _"Any more than two, I'd have a hard time explaining its absence to the Starfleet comptrollers."

Talar pretended to look thoughtful. "With the right paper work you should be able to explain two and-a-half. Surely your mission on Andor was … expensive." It was Riker's turn to consider, and he did so, ostentatiously, for a minute or so. Stroking his beard thoughtfully and letting his glance slide over the shimmering razor wire in the distance, he nodded slowly.

"Yes, I believe it is worth it. I'll find a way to justify the … loss. One question though; even though he has proven a terrific embarrassment to myself and my ship, and may have a hard time keeping his hands to himself and his fly zipped up, the crewman in question is not violent or particularly dangerous. I wouldn't want him harmed. I mean, you do have Cardassians here and one hears things about them …"

"We do keep our races segregated, for security reasons. But I take it from your question that you will not require us to … extract information from this prisoner, or administer physical punishment?" Talar asked, all business now. If he had a note PADD with him, his fingers would be poised to check off certain boxes.

Riker resisted the temptation to swallow, as his throat suddenly dry. _Maybe this was not such a good idea …_

"No," he replied, as diffidently as he could. "The circumstances of the man's offence do not require further investigation; he's had his trial in Andoria. All I really need, frankly, is to avoid having him turn up on Terra with … embarrassing details to relate to the media about Andorian justice, and about a future Federation Head of State. Who, by the way, is only seventeen." He managed to waggle his eyebrows suggestively.

"I understand," Talar nodded. "Of course." He was practically purring now. Riker could see the calculation cross the man's face; for the Romulan, efficient bureaucrat that he doubtless was, it was all about logistics now.

"If he is not a violent offender, we will put him into Ulak One with the other humans then, for initial observation. And if he presents no trouble, given the relatively minor nature of his offence and his rank, we could move him out to Ulak Six in a month or so."

"Ulak?" Riker couldn't help but inquire. His Romulan was limited to utility phrases such as 'another ale please' or 'don't move or I'll pull the trigger', and this word was new to him. For some reason, the Universal Translator seemed to think it was a term of art that did not require translation.

"'Ulak' is a term we use for 'unit' or, in the case of prisons, for 'camps'," Talar explained superciliously, as if slightly indignant that his interlocutor seemed to lack even the most basis knowledge of relevant terminology.

Riker faked a convincingly diffident shrug and nodded his agreement with the disposition suggested by the Commander –what exactly he had agreed to he hoped to find out in due course. Time to nail down the verisimilitude, and administer a test. No point sending Tom down here if Talar had access to the Federations convict database, and could find out that his new inmate's criminal record had in fact been formally expunged over a year ago.

"I trust Romulus is associated with the Federation's numeric penal record system? The prisoner was marked on Andor for onward transfer to … New Zealand. So you should be able to enter him into your system easily." Talar shook his head. "I have heard of the scheme and it is brilliant in its simplicity and durability, but the Empire does not have access to it. Something I personally regret. We do have different methods of record-keeping. Usually."

The implication that these methods did not apply here hung in the air. _Prisoners here were not recorded._

Riker shrugged diffidently, injecting his comments with just the thought of pregnant pauses he thought someone like Talar could relate to and appreciate as meaningful. "No matter. We are agreed then. Since he was … my crewman before he could not control his … baser urges, I would appreciate it if he could be treated … humanely. As I said, He is not so much a criminal as he is … politically inconvenient."

The Romulans eyes glinted. "Most of them are, here on Mokan, Captain," he drawled with a slightly contemptuous smile. "Most of them are."


	5. The Package

**Chapter 5 – The Package**

"So we are just … leaving? No investigation of whoever sent that distress signal, or what happened to them?"

Disbelief coloured Beverly Crusher's voice as the away team headed back to the Flyer and she mentally calculated all the time she and her staff had wasted getting Sickbay ready to receive unknown numbers of casualties.

"There was no way Talar would have let us inside the facility, and when the people in charge of the place where a distress signal originated tell you there's no emergency, we have no standing to pursue the matter. Here in the Neutral Zone, challenging that principle is particularly inadvisable," Riker responded.

"So we're doing nothing." B'Elanna Torres echoed the doctor's indignation.

"Oh no, there will be an investigation. But we'll be doing it our way," Riker's voice was firm and determined. "In a way that will give us answers the Romulans are unlikely to want us to have."

"So what, exactly, are you planning, Captain?" Jorak inquired as Henley opened the hatch from the inside. "I assume you are thinking about a course of action already. How can I be of assistance?"

"I would like to discuss my idea with Commander Paris first, if you don't mind, Jorak. If he considers it viable, you and the other senior officers will be briefed, and asked for your input and contributions. If he does not, we will be on our way."

Jorak entered the shuttle with as close to a shrug of acquiescence as his Vulcan heritage permitted. Private discussions among the command team on sensitive issues were commonplace, and gave him no cause for concern, even if it seemed odd that Commander Paris appeared to be given a veto over the decision to proceed. "Of course, sir. Understood."

B'Elanna cast a questioning look at the Captain, but did not pursue the matter. If whatever the Captain had in mind didn't pan out – or even if it did – she'd worm what it was out of Tom in due course. And why his vote was so important to Riker.

Throughout the short return flight, Riker sat in quiet contemplation as the enormity of what he was about to ask his XO to do sunk in. According to Deanna's reaction on the bridge and what little she had been able to tell him afterwards without violating patient confidentiality, Tom's response to just seeing the prison from orbit had been visceral. Even Riker, not the most sensitive practitioner of interpersonal relations, had noticed him recoiling instinctively from the sight. Tom's acceptance of the mission was clearly not a foregone conclusion, and it was not something Riker could order him or anyone else to undertake.

Whether Deanna would permit Tom to go was yet another question - one that might require finesse. Or subterfuge.

And even if everything fell into place and Tom Paris agreed to be sent into the Mokan detention facility in what amounted to an undercover operation, the Enterprise team would need to put in place an airtight extraction plan in case the deception was discovered, or even just to retrieve their XO, once he had gathered all the intel required. Something in which B'Elanna's assistance would, in turn, likely be indispensable … Would she be prepared to give it, if doing so put her mate in danger of his life?

This was not a question to which Will Riker knew the answer. He knew his own difficulties in sending his _imzadi_ into high-risk situations, but he simply did not know the Torres-Paris dynamic well enough yet. Their past history, if their file was any indication, showed a near-reckless willingness on both officers' part to risk their lives on behalf of others, and each other. Could that have changed, with the presence of a toddler in their quarters?

Questions, questions, questions. And he had to obtain answers to all of them in under four hours: Talar had indicated that his officers would create a five-minute transport window at 20:00 standard time. Only very reluctantly had he agreed to the delay Riker had requested, under the guise of needing time to create the necessary paperwork for his former crewman's unscheduled "transfer". The Romulan had made it clear that such administrative niceties were a sign of the Federation's contemptible weakness in its approach to law and order, and that his indulgence of them was a rare gift to the good Captain.

While Riker mused in silence, the other officers, familiar with the closed look on their Captain's face, knew better than to disrupt his thoughts and simply went about their usual business. Beverly Crusher, with no particular task now that there were no casualties to prepare for, took the opportunity for a power nap in one of the Flyer's bunks.

As soon as Henley docked the shuttle in its bay, Riker hit his comm badge. "Riker to Paris. Tom, can you meet me in my ready room please?"

…..

"You're kidding me, right?" Tom stared at his Captain in disbelief. "You want me to go into a prison we've never even heard rumours about, that's filled to the brim with Cardassians – Kahless knows what they're in the pen for, they used to _run_ that kind of joint and were damned good at it – and Remans, whose particular in-bred brand of psychopathy you've specifically warned me about."

He paused for a quick breath and barreled on. "And to top things off, the whole thing is run by _Romulans_, the inventors of the disruptor, who last time I looked based their understanding of human rights standards on Adolf Hitler and Khan Noonien Singh. And you want me to do all that, pretending that I'm a no-good jerk-off whose inconvenient indiscretions warrant his being disappeared? Have I got all that right? Really Will, now I've heard everything."

Riker leaned forward in his chair, taking his First Officer's measure intently. He had been prepared for a blast, and he had gotten it.

What he had _not_ gotten was the word "no".

"Yes, that's the general idea. And yes, I was hoping we could use your expertise at … going undercover for this."

"My expertise at going undercover, or my expertise at being the type of habitual screw-up who ends up in jail? I'm telling you now Will, that's a part of my history I'd rather not revisit. I did it once, for Janeway, and that was hell. And last week on Nardik was … not fun either." His sapphire eyes darkened with unspoken memories.

_Ouch. _Clearly a sore spot. Or three. Riker briefly wished that Deanna were here to help out, then just as quickly realized he was better off with her remaining unaware of this discussion. But sore spot or whatever, it still wasn't a "no". Riker ploughed on.

"The first. Undercover ops. The fact that you have the tattoo only adds … authenticity to the story I gave Talar. And yes, I have to admit that I'm hoping that your … other experiences would allow you not only to see through the operation down there faster than anyone else, but also not to panic and get into the kinds of inadvertent … difficulties that someone who hasn't been there might."

He paused briefly, putting as much reassurance as he was capable into the next sentence. "But all that said, if we can't figure out the means and a plan to get you out at the drop of a hat, or if you tell me you're uncomfortable with the idea – for professional _or_ personal reasons - we won't do it."

Tom's eyes narrowed, but he made no move to intervene, merely waiting for Riker to continue pitching his case.

"But I believe that there is valuable intelligence to be gathered down there, that might be crucial to the Federation's ongoing rapprochement – or not - with the Romulan Empire. For example, the Neutral Zone has pretty well held for decades, centuries even, as a no-go area for both sides. Even during the time of the Romulan-Cardassian alliance there were no recorded serious violations. And suddenly here we find a well-established facility, which looks like it's been here for a while, and which given the number of Cardassians inside may well exist with the knowledge of the new Government there. So how does that relate to the Romulan Empire? As I said, the answers might be critical to the Federation, and to Starfleet."

He paused briefly to look into Tom's eyes. "And then there are the humans … We have no idea who they are, or why they are there. _Someone_ sent a distress signal looking for Federation help, and my guess, for obvious reasons, is that it was the humans – rather than the Reman, Romulan or Cardassian prisoners. I mean, think about it. Whoever sent the signal was desperate enough to risk death. Probably got it, too, based on the plasma cannons and what the good Commander did and didn't tell us."

Tom took a deep breath and studied his fingernails intently. Without meeting Riker's eyes, he said, "Help you think we might be able to provide, through this crazy plan of yours."

"Yes. And I also think we need you to do it, Tom. Someone down there needs us. Needs _you, _frankly_. _I wouldn't ask if I didn't believe that."

Silence. Riker waited, wondering whether he had overplayed his hand with that last comment, wondering what was going through his now completely inscrutable XO's head.

Another deep breath, accompanied by a little shudder. Finally, Tom looked up, his clear blue eyes suddenly focused on his Captain's like lasers.

"Fine. I'll do it. B'Elanna won't be happy. But we'll need her help, and you'll have to do the asking, because she'll either kill me outright or try and talk me out of it, and it appears we have time for neither. Here's what we could do …"

And before Riker had fully digested the "yes" he had just received, Tom Paris laid out an extraction plan – involving a replica of the emergency one-way transport unit that had saved Jean-Luc Picard's life on the _Scimitar_, hidden inside his body with the help of one of the small cloaking units from one of the Romulan satellites the Enterprise had pulled in.

"It should work, provided the cloak also serves to neutralize the dampening field over the prison, assuming they have put in the usual precautions against people transporting in and out. The multi-phasic technology of that one-time gizmo of LaForge's should enable transport right back to the ship, through the cloaking network up here as well. But that's the first thing we need to verify. Then …"

Tom was all business now, plotting and planning at warp speed, as if his earlier misgivings had never been voiced or thought of. The sudden transformation left Riker nearly breathless. Admiral Janeway had told him about her former helmsman's chameleon-like ability to mask and set aside his emotions, but it was quite another thing to watch the process in action – almost like flicking a switch, Riker mused.

Clearly, the man was perfect for the job.

…..

"So, which of my husband's buttons did you push to get him to agree to this crazy scheme of yours, Captain?"

B'Elanna Torres' tone of voice was so full of anger, in anyone else it would have warranted a reprimand for insubordination. In this instance, Riker was prepared to make allowances, both for the speaker's innate Klingon fire and the understandable worry for her mate's safety, and he decided to cut her some slack. Especially as she continued to work at the miniature cloaking device in her hand while she vented.

"_The ship needs you, Tom_? That was Janeway's favourite, when she needed a patsy for a suicide mission. But that can't be it, not this time. We could just fly the hell out of here at Warp Nine and go home." She demonstratively put a curled finger on her lips, her ridged forehead creased in a mock-thoughtful frown that made her look more purely Klingon than Riker had ever thought possible.

"Oh, I know. _Starfleet will greatly benefit from whatever intel on Romulan doings you can gather down there, and future lives will be saved._ Or was it the Grand Daddy of them all – _There are people down there who need your help, Tom?_"

She stopped to take a breath and glared at Riker, who was taking a sudden interest in the small parts salvaged from the Romulan satellite that were spread over several of the consoles in the Engineering research lab. B'Elanna gave a short nod, having found the confirmation she was looking for.

In a corner of the room, Harry Kim was conducting the necessary tests on the miniature cloaking devices and the impact of their presence on secondary dampening fields. He scrunched his shoulders and did his best to remain as unobtrusive as possible, even as he took in every word of the conversation, his own unease growing by the minute.

"That's it, isn't it. You're not the first, nor the last to do this to him, Captain. He's the kind of guy who'll take a phaser blast in the chest for a kid he's never met before, or who'll offer to have his organs ripped out so that someone else can live one more day. And you … you _people_ are just happy to take advantage of that, regardless of the risk to his life and his sanity. All in the name of 'getting the job done'."

Her voice rose ever higher. "It's for the greater good, Tom. Take one for the team, Paris. _Fucking Starfleet_. Sometimes I wonder why I ever …"

"B'Elanna." The soft voice came from the entrance. Neither Riker nor B'Elanna had noticed Tom's entrance, but it was clear from the tautness in his features that he had witnessed at least part of his mate's outburst.

"Captain, will you excuse us for a moment?"

Riker nodded and fled the vicinity - not even bothering to cloak his departure in command dignity - relieved that he would now have some time to formulate answers to his Chief Engineer's accusations.

"Bee, I thought we went through this at the briefing. Yes, the mission is not free of risk. But you and Harry," he looked up at his best friend across the room, giving him a small nod, "you're both doing your damnedest to minimize that risk. As you've done countless times before. I have complete faith in your ability to get me out of there. And yes, I know you'd rather I didn't do this, and yes, frankly, so would I. But we both knew when we signed up for this job that there'd be times like this. So let's just get on with it and focus on getting ready."

B'Elanna stared back at her mate, long and hard, before hissing out her anger, for his ears only. "Yes. Fine. Whatever. I know I can't talk you out of this. But I won't pretend I'm happy with it, or with you for that matter. I was hoping you'd be laying off that voluntary hero bullshit now that you're a father, pull those stunts only when there wasn't a choice, like last week. Guess I was wrong."

Tom took his wife's shoulders with both hands, and looked into her eyes, willing her to understand something he himself did not, not entirely. "Look, Bee, there's something down there that I need to do. And it's not because I want to be a hero, or because I have this irresistible urge to do insanely stupid things. At least I don't think so."

He paused and looked down at the floor, as if for reassurance. "No – this time it's for … _me_. I fee this need to know whether what's down there is real, or whether the people inside are like I was in Auckland, rotting away thanks to somebody's lies. The fact that they're behind a cloak seems to suggest that _someone_ has _something_ to hide here. And if that's the case, I'd never forgive myself if I didn't do something about it, or at least look and report. Do you understand?"

Her flashing eyes softened a little at his pleading tone, but her resentment had not diminished and she resolutely suppressed her earlier resentment when she had thought that Captain Riker was simply leaving the planet without carrying out further investigations. "I'm not sure I see the difference, frankly. You still end up on a crusade and facing the business end of a disruptor, or worse. And Miral might end up growing up with a wall full of commendations and medals, but no father to read her the next chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh."

Tom squeezed his eyes shut at the mention of his daughter, but opened them again, unable to hide a certain amount of umbrage from seeping into his voice. "That's a bit rich, Bee, coming from the woman who refused medical treatment for a principle, and who insisted on being _killed_ for the sake of some form of … spiritual enlightenment."

She glared at him, no longer interested in keeping her voice down. "That was before we had Miral, Tom."

"Oh, so it's okay to be heroic and stupid when all you're leaving behind is your mate, is it?"

"You promised you wouldn't turn into your father and put your duties ahead of your family."

"That was in the context of assignments and postings, but we made the decision to serve on the Enterprise together, and _this_ comes with it, B'Elanna. You knew that going in."

He paused for breath, forcing his voice into a calmness he did not feel. "But here's the deal. I promise I'll push that button you and Harry are building for me at the first sign of trouble; I won't wait until the last minute like I usually do. Kahless knows I'm not a fan of prisons, so having a get-out-of-jail-free card is something that I won't hesitate to take advantage of. Okay?"

She held his eyes with hers for what seemed like an eternity, sinking into them for the intimate connection they sometimes shared. Knowing who they were, what could be changed about the other and what could not, had been a long time coming; even then, understanding had come long before acceptance. At times, it still did.

"Fine," she said again, with resignation this time. "You do what you think you have to do, Thomas Eugene Paris. You always do anyway. And in the meantime, I don't have to be happy about it. I'll probably yell at you about it when you get back, and I will feel perfectly free to give the Captain a hard time whenever I feel like it. He has it coming, and he knows it."

Tom smiled down at her gratefully. "Just leave Deanna out of your revenge plans, okay? I have a feeling she'll be laying into him on her own account, and won't need extra motivation from your end." B'Elanna harrumphed a little at that and muttered something unintelligible as he hugged her reluctant and slightly stiff body to his; finally she relented and leaned into him, accepting his embrace, if not exactly reciprocating warmly.

Tom buried his face in B'Elanna's hair for a few moments before looking over at Harry, whose attempts at becoming invisible during his best friends' argument had failed spectacularly - despite the cloaking device in his hands.

"How's it coming over there, Har? Any chance this thing will actually work? I don't think the Chief will let me off this ship if it doesn't."

Harry suppressed a little sigh. A considerable part of him had been whispering into his ear that if he simply announced that the cloaking device had no effect on dampening fields, the Enterprise would be on its way without anyone the wiser, and his best friend safe and sound. But he was a Starfleet officer and, as they kept drilling into people at the Academy, his first duty was to the truth.

"According to my tests here, the interaction between the cloaking device and the various dampening fields we put around them results in the cloak cutting right through them. I suppose it would be useless otherwise – I mean what good would a cloaking device be if you could neutralize it by flicking a switch on a dampener? So, yeah, I think this thing we're building will serve both to shield your … internal transporter from detection _and _enable you to use it to get out."

He paused, unhappily. "I even think B'Elanna and I can enhance the transporter to widen the field, enough so you could take other people out. Provided they're real close."

Harry watched Tom's interest flare up like a supernova. _Shit. So much for talking him out of this. _"So we can use it for extraction? Not just for me, but for whoever else I get to know and like well enough to let them hug me? Cool."

Harry did not suppress his sigh this time. "Yeah, you should be able to get three or four of them out with you. Provided the good folks they're keeping down there aren't a bunch of deranged serial killers or nutcases that you wouldn't want to get close to. Also, I hear that Remans and Cardassians aren't particularly cuddly."

B'Elanna had tried and failed, but maybe if they both chipped away at the guy … "Look, Tom," Harry said, the tone of his voice making clear that this was the best friend speaking, not the Lieutenant offering operational advice, "you know as well as we do that this mission isn't necessary; it's the Captain's personal idea of excessive diligence – or maybe adventure. Who the hell knows. We've done our bit, we've checked out the distress signal, been told there was no emergency and now we could be on our way, with reams of useful intel about an unlawfully constructed prison in the Neutral Zone. _Should_ be on our way, frankly, given where we are."

He took a deep breath, and ploughed on. "I mean, it'll be nice to have the detailed scoop on this place, but we didn't even know it existed 24 hours ago, and I suspect the Federation will go right on ticking if all we do is go home and tell everyone about it. We do _not _need to be the ones who take a magnifying glass to it. Let those so-called infiltration specialists from Section 31 earn their money doing something useful for a change."

Tom had started to pace up and down the lab during this impassioned speech, his mind busily developing potential extraction scenarios based on what he had just learned about the transporter's capabilities. Only half of what Harry had been trying to tell him was registering, but something finally sank in. He stopped in his tracks to look first at his best friend, then at his wife, then back at Harry, with the same measure of exasperation.

"Guys, I appreciate what you're trying to do here. Really, I do. But honestly, I'm not that psychologically frail that I'll fall apart at the first close-up view of razor wire. So knock it off already, both of you, okay?"

Harry stared at him in disbelief. "Who said anything about you being _psychologically frail_? You're Tom-bloody-Paris. If you fall apart, you'll do it afterwards, on your own time, when no one's looking - in your quarters or mine, and with the door closed. I'm talking about the chances of there _being_ an afterwards, you idiot. The chances of you getting killed by hordes of angry Romulans. Get your priorities straight, man, and start worrying about the big picture! Like getting out of that bloody jail alive. You almost didn't make it back from that Kazon ship either, remember?"

"Thanks a lot, Harry. Like I needed the reminder," B'Elanna growled from her end of the lab.

Tom walked over to his best friend and slapped him on the shoulder while locking eyes with his mate across the room. "The big picture - I leave that to you two geniuses, as always. I'm just the Bear of Very Little Brain, as my wife and daughter like to call me. You and your gadgetry haven't let me down yet, so why would you start now? Especially if Libby is serious about that godfather thing? And B'Elanna, we've already established, will kill me if I screw up."

He looked up at the chronometer on the wall, determined to end this conversation before it got out of hand. "Okay, we've got less than an hour, and I have a date with Dr. Crusher. So whaddya say, we all stop the collective fret fest and get on with it, shall we?"

More softly, he added, "And don't force me to make it an order. Please."

…..

The procedure Tom had referred to as a "reverse appendectomy" took a mere ten minutes, once B'Elanna and Harry had completed their work and produced a device little bigger than a human thumb. A couple of scans confirmed that, with the cloak engaged, it would not be detected by standard sensor equipment or metal detectors. And, as Tom had noted, "if they point a fish finder at my gut, all they'll get is pictures of Paris."

The Chief Medical Officer had inserted the device carefully into his abdominal cavity, after, as she put it, "moving a few things aside a bit". The surgery was not complicated, except for the fact that Beverley needed to make sure the button that would activate the device faced outward, and could still be palpated if Tom ran his finger over the layer of skin and musculature that covered it. Nonetheless, she felt a profound sense of unease as she finished running the dermal regenerator over her handiwork and watched her patient swing his long legs over the biobed.

She and Deanna had spoken briefly after the briefing, and had agreed that this mission wasn't worth the risk, no matter what intel could be gathered or individuals rescued from a Romulan prison. Yet, despite their misgivings – evidently shared by B'Elanna Torres and Harry Kim, and quite possibly by Jorak, although it was impossible to tell – it seemed as if the Captain and his First Officer were bent on forging ahead, for what reasons Beverly personally found hard to fathom. As for Deanna, she had found it impossible to spend even five minutes alone with the XO to try and discuss the matter with him.

Beverly shook her head as Tom gingerly stood up, running his fingertips over his happily still flat stomach. A brief smile ghosted across his face, without touching his eyes. "Ah, there it is. The 'Easy Button'. Great. Now I'm all set."

"Not quite," the CMO said. "I still have to knock you out again, remember?" Tom rolled his eyes. "Right. Of course. How could I forget?" He settled back on the biobed.

Talar had insisted to Riker that his new prisoner be brought to him in a state of unconsciousness; it "would make his arrival in his new accommodation easier on everyone." Besides, it was part of local protocol. Security reasons. In practice, what it meant was that Tom was to awaken in the Romulan facilities, ostensibly without any idea how he had gotten there from the Enterprise's brig.

Beverly was readying a hypospray on her instrument table when the Will Riker and B'Elanna walked in together. Their proximity was clearly a matter of chance, not choice; Beverly found herself idly wondering what the ride on the turbolift might have been like for the Captain. Riker dropped back as B'Elanna's determined stride – and a casually thrown shoulder - made it obvious that she intended to reach her husband's side first, and alone.

She placed her hands firmly on either side of Tom's face, looked him deep in the eye, and whispered, "You're such an idiot, I honestly don't know why I bother with you sometimes. But you're _my _idiot, so come back in one piece."

"I will," he responded huskily. "Count on it. And tell Miral …" He left the sentence hanging, unable to say more, willing her to understand.

"I know," she said, simply.

A deep and unapologetically long kiss later, B'Elanna turned on her heels and swept out of Sickbay without another backward glance. She did, however, toss a scowl at Riker in passing and snarled softly, "He's _all yours_, Captain."

Riker let out a long breath and approached the biobed, where Tom had followed his wife's exit with his eyes. "Now I know why Janeway really kept your undercover adventure with the Kazon a secret from everyone," he said. "Harry and B'Elanna would have killed her if they'd known what she was sending you out to do."

Tom, glad of the change in tone, pursed his lips. "Maybe Harry might have. In those days, B'Elanna was still pretty ambivalent about me. She tried to talk me out of turning back into a jerk, as I had to for the mission, but she also didn't turn up to say goodbye when I left. So what just happened here constitutes a major improvement from my perspective."

Riker smiled, a little uneasily. "You'll be happy to hear that Jorak has determined that if we park the Enterprise in orbit in the layers between the cloaking satellites, she should be concealed against at least immediate sensor detection from both the surface _and_ from space. Thank goodness that grid is three-dimensional. Surprised the Romulans didn't think of that possibility when they constructed it."

Tom snorted. "They probably didn't think somebody would be crazy enough to want to spend a few days sightseeing in orbit over one of their penal institutions. Can't really blame them." He turned to Beverly Crusher. "I'm ready for that hypospray, Doc. Let's get it over with."

Riker swallowed, and laid a hand on his First Officer's shoulder. "Good luck, Tom. See you in a couple of days – or hours. Remember to bail at the first sign of trouble. And … thanks." It was all he managed before being shunted aside, less than graciously, by the ship's medical officer. Neither noticed the clenched jaw and tightness around the First Officer's eyes as Tom willed his breathing to come deep and even and put his head down on the portable gurney.

Tom Paris was unconscious and breathing shallowly but steadily by the time he was strapped down on the gurney, as instructed by the Romulan Commander - "routine security measures for the movement of prisoners". He had privately, and urgently, asked Beverly not to apply the restraints until he was unconscious, without articulating any specific reasons for the request.

At precisely 20:00 hours standard time, and in the presence of the Captain who would be accompanying the prisoner to the surface for the handover, Lieutenant Commander Jorak established the transport link to Mokan.


	6. Inside the Wire

**Chapter 6 – Inside the Wire**

"Welcome to Mokan, Mr. Paris, and to the beginning of the rest of your life." The voice was brisk, cool and officious, tinged with boredom, but – surprisingly - not overtly malicious. The voice of a man doing his job.

Tom's head, still buzzing from the after-effect of Beverly Crusher's hypospray, began to clear slowly but steadily. He opened his eyes to find himself looking at a nondescript, grey ceiling bathed in a harsh white light that seemed to emanate from the corners where wall and ceiling met. Clouds of insects danced in the brightest corners, individual specimen making buzzing sounds and drifting down like blackened snow whenever one came into contact with the energy field that provided the illumination.

He tentatively tried to move his arms and legs, but found that he was still strapped to the gurney on which he had been transported down to the moon. For a moment, blind panic threatened to overtake him. The feeling of helplessness, complete vulnerability and exposure to the man beside him washed over him with a sickening force, and his heart suddenly hammered in his breast.

_Breathe. _

Tom closed his eyes and tried to relax, forcing his breath into a deep, steady rhythm. When he felt another needle press unexpectedly into his neck he nearly lost control again, but a sense of artificial calm descended upon him almost instantly as whatever drug the Romulan had just administered entered his bloodstream. His mind was still racing, but it was almost as if it were attempting to do so underwater. Not exactly an improvement, all things considered.

Taking advantage of his slower breathing, Tom found that turning his head was possible despite the restraints; he did so, only to feel a sudden wave of nausea wash over him. He knew that the hypospray Dr. Crusher had given him aboard ship shouldn't have had this effect, so it had to be whatever had just been injected into his body. Or perhaps it was the cumulative effect of the two. Tom closed his eyes again to allow his stomach to regain its equilibrium.

"You have been injected with a mild tranquilizer in order to ensure a … smoother transition to your new circumstances, Mr. Paris. The nausea is a side effect, due to your slightly different physiology from that of Romulans. It only leads to actual vomiting in the rarest of cases. The effects will wear off in approximately two hours, at which point you will find yourself resting comfortably and securely in your new quarters."

_Some consolation. _Tom opened his eyes again and turned his head towards the voice, slowly, swallowing down the excess saliva that even this small movement seemed to generate. A Romulan officer stood beside the gurney – not Talar, based on the description the Captain had given him; this man was short and slight, despite the heavy shoulder padding of the standard Romulan jacket, and bore the insignia of a lieutenant as well as the Romulan designation for medical personnel. The man took the measure of his prisoner with cool detachment; he did not introduce himself. Another Romulan, disruptor cocked in the crook of his arm, stood guard in a shaded corner of the room.

"Unfortunately Commander Talar is too … busy to welcome you in person, and has left it to me. I am not certain what, if anything, your Captain has told you, but we are not barbarians here. You will find that you will have few reasons to complain, provided you comply with the rules. And they are very simple." He ticked items off the fingers of his left hand. "One. Attempts to escape or to establish contact with anyone outside the prison are punishable by death. Two. No fighting among inmates. Three. No questioning of orders from guard personnel. Four. No hoarding or stealing of things. Five. Physical punishment will be administered for breaches of discipline, in varying degrees of severity, as the Commander sees fit."

The man's voice was a monotone; he had obviously recited this litany a few times before. "Because you are a very lucky man and the Commander likes your Captain, you will be put into Ulak One. That facility is graded for cooperative human prisoners; consider yourself on probation. Non-compliance will lead to removal to a less pleasant environment, with some of our Cardassian inmates, for such time as the Commander sees fit. If you behave, you will receive three meals a day and the worst thing you will have to contend with is boredom. Do you understand?"

Tom tried to nod, only to feel the bile rise in his throat as his inner ear failed to compensate for the movement. The better course of action was to hold still, and to simply croak out a "yes". Besides, he was here to obtain information; might as well start now.

Injecting what he thought would be just the right amount of confusion, fear and anger into a voice that as yet seemed unable to project very far he whispered, "What is this place? Why am I here?"

"Why you are here is something you will need to answer yourself, Mr. Paris. I do not keep track of prisoners' charges or convictions, provided there are any, whom they might have offended, or of any other reasons they might be here. Suffice it to say, whatever you did has made you … unpopular in certain circles, but insufficiently so to make you into a candidate for outright execution. Or perhaps there has been a calculation that you would be more trouble dead than alive, and may need to be procured some day. Personally I do not understand these qualms, but then I am not a politician."

Tom detected an edge of resentment in the man's voice but was too groggy to analyze what it might mean. Was this … medic advocating execution over imprisonment? No matter. As long as he kept talking he was providing information.

The Romulan readied another hypospray as he spoke. "As for what this place is, consider it a dumping ground. And you, Mr. Paris, have been dumped."

He approached the gurney. In a monotone devoid of even the most basic professional sympathy he waved the syringe in front of Tom's face and stated, "This is an inoculation for some of the local diseases, mostly carried by insects and small mammals that get through the perimeter fence. Stay away from those for the next day or so, until this takes effect. We wouldn't want you to die on us prematurely now, would we."

Tom felt the cold needle press on his neck; later he was unable to say whether it was another onset of panic or the effect of the injection that caused the blackness that overtook him.

…..

"He's coming to. I should put on some tea." The eager voice seemed to come from right beside his head. Tom was dimly aware of someone's breath on his face, just before he felt the presence beside him retreat in something close to a scurrying motion.

Having learned his lesson from his previous attack of nausea, Tom moved his hands and fingers first this time, feeling for the straps that had held him to the gurney, finding them gone. His breath hissed out in relief. The light behind his closed eyelids was different, less harsh than before, and he felt more heat on his skin than he remembered from his first brief awakening. The nausea had abated, he found, but he still felt blurry around the edges from the various injections. The price of preservation, he thought with clinical detachment.

The bunk he was lying on was hard and covered with a thin mattress. He had no idea of the time. It had been evening hours on the ship, but who knew what 20:00 hours standard time translated to on Mokan. That said, he must have been lying there for sometime; his shirt – a short-sleeved, loosely fitted thing in khaki, matched by equally loose-fitting pants with an elastic waistband, was plastered to his torso in some places from the sweat he must have given off while he lay unconscious.

Tom slowly opened his eyes and tried to lift his head. He succeeded, but even though he did not suffer the expected punishment of nausea, a sudden stabbing pain in his head caused him to spit out an involuntary, "Oh, shit."

"You can say that again," another voice said, too bitter to allow for humour. "Welcome to hell."

Tom sat up gingerly, put his feet on the ground and looked around. He was in a room that was bare except for six bunks, including the one he was lying on; a box that seemed to contain bottles of water but no ice to keep it cool; and a crude auto-heater surrounded by a number of pots and cups, all metal, and a couple of screw-top jars that presumably held things to put in the pots. At the foot of four of the bunks - and his own, he suspected – sat open containers filled with what seemed like basic hygiene or convenience items.

The harshness of the light streaming in through the open door and two windows, combined with the blurriness he still felt behind his eyes, made it impossible for him to make out the figures in the room with him in any detail. There seemed to be three of them, the one crouched beside him; one standing in the middle of the room, backlit and only discernible in outline; and one lying on one of the other bunks.

"Cuppa tea?" The first voice asked brightly. The man to whom it belonged slowly stood up from where he had been squatting beside Tom's bunk, bracing himself against the edge as if the action presented a physical challenge. He walked slowly over to the other end of the hut. "My sincere apologies, but the only kinds we have on offer are a Romulan blend, and mint. At least we think of it as mint. It's green, anyway. Very good, all things considered. Light and refreshing."

"If you don't have any Earl Grey, mint sounds just fine, thanks. Straight, no sugar." Tom's voice came out in a rasp, and he realized his mouth was completely dry. One step away from serious dehydration, the medic in him assessed with clinical precision. He sat up slowly and deliberately. Probably swishing some water around in his mouth first would be a good idea.

"Oh great, a funny man. We needed one of those around here. 'Specially now that Gorman's gone." The bitter-sounding speaker appeared to be the man lying on the bunk. He was turning over now, onto his side, cupping his chin in his hand to get a better look at the newcomer.

As Tom's eyes adjusted to the light and the fact that his retinas no longer seemed to be gummed up from the inside, the faces of his three fellow inmates began to resolve. All three were gaunt, although not to the point of emaciation. The skin of the two Caucasians was darkly tanned and had assumed a slightly leathery look, no doubt due to prolonged exposure to Mokan's relentless sun and heat. The ebony skin of the third man, who had been standing in the middle of the room silently observing Tom, had benefited from his African heritage; as a result, he seemed younger than his companions despite the old, haunted look that dominated his dark eyes.

Without stretching out his hand, and with ill-concealed suspicion in his voice, he introduced himself. "Lieutenant Mbako Nyere, Chief Science Officer, USS _Hiroshima_. Now ranking Officer in this camp." His voice caught a little at this statement. "These two gentlemen are Ensigns Janne Karsgaard, our resident Master of the Tea Ceremony, and Arno Schmidt, over on the bunk. Lieutenant Toller, Jason Toller, has elected to remain outside for the day. He … has decided he likes to be out in the sunshine. You may get to meet him later, if he survives the experience. And you are …?"

_USS Hiroshima? _Tom's eyes widened, but until he was certain that their conversation wasn't being monitored, he wasn't about to start with the detailed enquiries. For the benefit of any potential audience he would, at first instance, need to keep up the indignation at his displacement. Conversely, of course, failure to ask general questions and to provide basic information would be noted. Yet another Goldilocks scenario – getting it just right was key.

"Paris. Tom Paris. USS Enterprise. Looks like we all used to serve the same happy outfit. And I haven't a fucking clue where I am or why, so I'd be grateful if you could enlighten me. Last thing I know, I'm in the brig of the Enterprise, the Doc giving me some kind of injection supposedly against a flu outbreak onboard, next thing I wake up with a Romulan staring me in the face."

Nyere looked at him, temporarily speechless, then incandescent with rage, but not on Tom's behalf. "The _Enterprise_ – the bloody flagship of Starfleet - was right here, and all they fucking did was drop _you_ off? Aww, shit…"

He continued to curse in a language unknown to Tom; probably Swahili or some other African dialect. His hands clenched and unclenched compulsively, until finally he punched the metal wall of the hut so hard that he caused it to shudder.

Tom shrugged. "Yeah. Bastards. I have no idea why we even came near this place; I don't think it was on our original flight plan. Maybe the Captain knew something the rest of us didn't, like the fact that this place exists. But I've been in the brig since Andor, and no one's been talking to me."

Nyere seemed to have collected himself after briefly closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. He turned to Tom, slightly more sympathetically now. "Someone up high must have a serious hate-on for you, buddy, to fly all the way out here to drop you off. Some of the Cardassians and one of the Remans we've run into in the infirmary have been claiming all along that the Federation is involved in this joint, but I never thought … I mean, surely, if anyone knew about this place back home, Starfleet would have gotten us out long ago, or at least now while they dropped you off. _Shit_. None of this makes any sense."

He shook his head in disbelief, still digesting the fact that Starfleet had been here, and had left them behind.

"This hell-hole is where the Romulans send people that are too inconvenient to keep around, but that would acquire a major following if there were dead - like the ones who were trying to make peace with Vulcan a few years back - or else people that are still useful for something. Like the Remans. Rumour has it they staged a rebellion a couple of years ago. The ones that are here are being kept alive in case they're needed for information. But the Federation involved? Starfleet? What the hell do they care about Romulans, Remans or Cardassians? No, no fucking way anyone at home knew of this place."

Tom nodded his head in agreement to a conclusion Nyere clearly had to make for his own sanity's sake, and accepted a mug of greenish-brown liquid from Karsgaard. He doubted the latter had been following the discussion, focused as he had been on meticulously measuring leaves and twigs into the pot, before judiciously pouring its contents into three cups. Tom nodded his thanks to the man, whose gray eyes briefly lit up in expectation as Tom brought the cup to his lips. When Tom nodded and smiled at him, Karsgaard's head bobbed up and down excitedly. "Good, isn't it?" Cradling his own cup, Karsgaard retreated to his bunk and started to hum tunelessly to himself.

The other inmate, Schmidt, hadn't budged from his bunk and instead had flopped back down after his brief initial – and rather perfunctory - show of interest in Tom, resuming his study of a large, brown insect that was crawling along the ceiling. Clearly, the novelty and excitement of having a newcomer had worn off rather quickly, or else he was beyond caring. After ten years, who could blame him?

But there was a quality to Schmidt's listlessness that suggested to Tom that this was a recent development. Resignation. Based on Nyere's reaction to the Enterprise's supposedly temporary visit, he could guess why; his story had briefly raised, then dashed again any hope that their Captain's and Gorman's plan to summon help had somehow worked. It stung more bitterly than Tom had thought possible that he could not tell the survivors of the _Hiroshima_, right here and right now, that it had …

How the Lieutenant had managed to keep himself together this long was astonishing, although it was already clear to Tom, after only a few minutes of acquaintance, that the other man did not wear the mantle of command over his small team easily or particularly willingly. And yet, as Tom sipped his tea – or whatever the indeed surprisingly refreshing concoction Karsgaard had given him was – Nyere filled him in on the history of the four human inhabitants of Ulak One.

When the _Hiroshima_ had surrendered, she had a crew complement of sixty-five. All the male officers, eight of them, had been brought here. A female lieutenant and ensign, as well as the rest of the crew, hadn't been seen since. Nyere stared into his own teacup for a moment, as if to count the twigs floating at the top, and continued.

"We – the officers – spent the first few weeks on some Romulan ship. Not sure how long that was. I think when we were brought here this place was pretty new. It's grown since then, like they keep adding new camps, expanding the population."

"Our First Officer, a Bajoran, didn't take well to being imprisoned. Kal Tokor, his name was. He'd grown up in a Cardassian displacement camp and had almost constant nightmares and flashbacks; the razor wire, he said. So pretty early on he kind of blew a relay and attacked a guard. They executed him in front of us. Captain Patel offered to take his place, but …" His voice trailed off and he was silent for a bit, his eyes far away.

"Then in the third year Toller and Massoud, our pilot, got in a fight over something stupid and were sent to the punishment cells. Massoud didn't come back. Toller – well, he's been off ever since, not that he was ever a prince to begin with. So the rest of us mostly kept our noses clean, except for Gorman. The smartass. He made more trips to the Cardassian side than any of us. That's where they send you when they don't like your attitude, but when whatever you've done doesn't warrant the punishment cells. They let the snakes play with you for a night, or a week." He didn't continue, looking up at the ceiling and raising his chin slightly.

Tom understood immediately, his suspicions confirmed. There were listening devices embedded in the hut; Nyere's story would be coloured by that knowledge, tailored to the unseen listeners. But the questions needed to continue; anything else would raise suspicion in equal measure.

"What about the Cardassians? What are they doing here?"

The Lieutenant chuckled mirthlessly. "Most of them are thugs and war criminals from the Bajoran occupation, according to Gorman. The Cardassians he talked to claim that those guys were sent here by the current government, to keep them from exposing past sins and wrecking attempts at - what do they call this sort of thing - 'national reconciliation'. They're all in Ulak Two. The rest of the Cardassians, the ones in Ulak Three, started arriving only about three years ago, and continued during the last couple of years. They claim it's because they were at odds with whoever was working on reconstructing their planet after the, what's-it-called, the _Dominion_ obliterated it. Or something like that."

"Shit," Tom snarled, for the benefit of those listening through the cracks in the wall. "And to think - all I did was have consensual sex with the wrong girl. Just my fucking luck. So to speak." He made a show of swatting away a non-existing fly, and looked at Nyere meaningfully. "Bugs in here are driving me nuts. I'm going outside, heat or no."

He lifted himself off his bunk, testing his legs for steadiness and headed for the door, carefully balancing his mug of "mint" tea – he was afraid to ask what it really was, but it tasted a lot better than it looked and did miracles for his parched throat. He allowed a beaming Karsgaard to pour him a refill on his way out. After a minute or so, Nyere followed.

'Outside' was a small area about the size of half a basketball court, surrounded by tall fencing topped with three rolls of razor wire that shimmered in the heat. Through the wire Tom could see a corridor that seemed to be patrolled by guards at irregular intervals. Right behind the corridor was fencing for the next enclosure, which looked like one discrete camp that seemed to consist of several pods, with adjacent yards that were smaller than the one he was in. The fencing at the back of that area was still visible but less distinct; at the greater distance, the force fields were beginning to affect transparency.

What was clear, though, was that Ulak One was located near the centre of a facility that seemed to now extend around it like layer upon layer of wire, steel and sand. Tom recalled Nyere's comments about the facility having been extended after the _Hiroshima_ officers had been deposited there; certainly the layout of the place, from what little he could see from his current vantage point, lent credence to that claim.

The unit they had just left now shaded about a third of the yard area in Ulak One; by the looks of it, Tom judged that the time was going on early evening. He guessed that he had probably spent close to the promised two hours unconscious, in the intake facility and then in the hut. He recalled nothing about being transported in between.

A trampled down area in the sand closest to the perimeter showed that someone – likely Nyere, given that he seemed in better physical shape than the others – was using the limited facilities as an occasional running track. A slumped over figure sat in the hottest, sunniest part of the yard. Tom pointed his chin at the man.

"That Toller? What's with him? Is he crazy?"

"Yes," Nyere replied matter-of-factly. "He is. Has been trying to get himself to die of heat stroke for years now, although he always somehow manages to drag himself back in just before he succeeds. None of us pay much attention anymore. But it's been getting worse ever since … ever since the Captain and Gorman went. Maybe he actually means it now. Problem is, if you're too obvious about trying to kill yourself, all they do it put you in the punishment unit, or give you to the really hardass Cardassians to play with overnight. And believe me, you'll _really_ wish you were dead then, except the Romulans will take great pleasure in keeping you alive. They were seriously pissed when Massoud died on them."

Despite the heat, Tom shivered at the images the man's flat statement conjured up behind his retinas. _They give you to some of the really hardass Cardassians to play with overnight. _His breath came out a little faster as he remembered the smell of the big Bolian … the weight of the other two, holding him down … being tied to the bed with his own clothing … the taste of the gag in his mouth … the helplessness … the feeling of being ripped in … _Steady, Paris. _

A deep sip of tea and years of practice allowed him to swallow the memory, and brought him back to the shimmering heat of a different prison. He lifted his cup in a mock salute. "This is not bad stuff." Nyere chortled without humour. "It blows in occasionally from up there," he nodded at the hills, covered in gray-green shrubbery, and at a ball of twigs, vaguely reminiscent of tumbleweed, now rolling around in the otherwise empty yard.

"Winds here can be pretty ferocious at times. Karsgaard tried to make us soup one day when we caught one of those iguana things that sometimes crawl in under the fence, just to add some extra protein to our diet. The thing tasted disgusting, the texture was even worse, but he'd added those twigs based on how they smelled and the liquid didn't seem so bad. He's been making it ever since, minus the lizards; even seems to have some useful vitamins. I think the Romulans let us have the auto-heater so they don't have to come by so often to keep us hydrated. Hot beverages …"

"… Are supposed to be better for that. I know. I trained as a medic for a while. Although personally I think there's no basis for that; what I do believe, though, is that drinking things made with freshly boiled water is a good thing for other reasons."

Clearly, if Toller was unstable and suicidal and Karsgaard and Schmidt were, respectively, detaching themselves from reality or lapsing into near-total apathy, this was the man he would need to work with. But there was no point in raising hopes of a rescue too soon, too fast. Getting information had to come before providing it; that was what he had come here for, after all, and if a rescue proved impossible, he'd still have the intel.

"Bugs better out here?" he asked, carefully. Nyere gave him a long, hard stare, not free from suspicion, before nodding. "Much. But best to keep your back to the tower that's behind us now. You do it too long though, they get suspicious. So let's walk and shut up or change topic when we face the tower."

Tom nodded his assent, and the two men started a slow circle around the yard, along the track left by Nyere's feet. The heat was stifling, even the small breeze he could feel on his exposed skin felt more like a blast from an open furnace than something that might offer relief. Within minutes, sweat poured down their faces, and their loose shirts stuck to their backs.

Turn. "Any idea why the new bunch of Cardassians are here, and not in one of their own highly effective labour camps?"

"From what I gather, those went out of fashion under the new government; too much Federation scrutiny. Guess Romulus and Cardassia are buddies now, too, and the Romulans for whatever reasons are helping the Cardassians take out the garbage, out of Federation sight."

"Interesting. You mentioned the Captain and Gorman 'going'. There are six bunks in the hut. Assume they're for you four, and those two. What exactly happened?" Time to get that part of the story, from the inside.

Nyere snorted. "Tim Gorman was our Chief Engineer. He had this bright idea to call for help. When you first mentioned you'd come with the Enterprise I thought it might have worked, but I guess not. That's why I was so pissed off with you coming. Nothing personal."

Turn; they were under observation. "So what happened to you on Andor?" Tom shrugged. "Met this girl who practically threw herself at me. Andorians have a thing about blue eyes, I found out, and this one wanted to be in Starfleet pretty badly, so the uniform was additional turn-on. Cute little thing, told me she was twenty. Turns out she lied. I wasn't about to say no; had no idea she was, like, _the bloody heiress to the throne _looking for excitement_."_

"Whoa."

"Yeah, whoa. I mean the sex was pretty good, but seriously not worth this." Tom made an expansive movement with the hand not holding a teacup, and sent a silent apology to Princess Lissan of Andoria up into the ether. Although truth be told, the enterprising teen would probably find her indirect role in his present mission more exciting than upsetting.

Both men fell silent for the remaining steps.

Turn. Nyere switched topics without transition, obviously used to the technique. "Gorman, as I said, he was a smartass. Always talking back to the guards, like he needed to show them that they hadn't broken him, or something. Got punished a lot for it, too. They'd send him to Ulak Two if they were really pissed at him, but mostly to Ulak Three. Never shut him up, though. Almost as if he went to the Cardassians to see if he could make allies. As it turned out, he may have. But they still roughed him up each time, if only for show."

Turn. Nyere fell silent again as they were facing the tower, making a few stretching movements with his arms and legs to justify their continued turns around the yard. Tom winced a little; the kindred spirit he sensed in the late Chief Engineer made him all the more eager to ensure that his sacrifices were not in vain.

Nyere, unaware of the nature of Tom's reflections, continued as they turned again. "Gorman heard during one of his … nights with the Cardassians in Ulak Two that there were some scientists in Ulak Three, and he started to tone down the attitude a little, so that's where they sent him most of the time after that. Then, about ten days ago, both he and the Captain got themselves thrown into Ulak Three - for a week. I have no idea what happened, whether they got some of the Cardassians to help them, or whether they started an inter-species riot. But a couple of days ago the Romulans went totally nuts and incinerated part of Ulak Three with one of those fucking plasma cannons up there."

Turn. Tom nodded and changed the topic, as the guard tower hove into view. Binoculars, it looked like. How endearingly old-fashioned. "Anyway, you may be happy to know that the Kinshasa Warriors won three of the last seven Parrisses Squares world championships. Or so I was told; I wasn't around much myself."

Nyere stared pointedly at Tom's neck, and the blue numbers now glistening with sweat. "Pen?" he asked. Tom shrugged diffidently.

"Eighteen months worth of rehab, so-called. Then got thrown into a deep space mission for a while, sort of on probation. Trying to make a new start on the _Enterprise_ and – boom. Fucked up, and here I am. Story of my life."

He looked up at the tower, where the reflection of the watcher's glasses showed the duty guard's continued interest in whatever he might have to say. "Guess now I should be pissed off that they didn't send me back to Auckland, huh. No visits from the Interplanetary Committee of the Red Crystal here, I bet."

Nyere snorted. "Arno was right. You're a funny man. Just watch it, or you'll end up like Gorman."

A turn brought them back to their main conversation, and Tom asked, "And I guess the apparent … failure of your colleagues' bright idea is what sent Toller over the edge?"

"Yeah. You could say that. Although he's been hanging on by his fingernails the last couple of years, barely. In the early years he had a violent streak, would occasionally attack one of us if we came too close to his toothbrush, or killed a bug he was keeping as a pet. Like he did with Massoud. Spent time in the punishment cells rather than with the Cardassians, when given the choice. When Massoud died, he put a lid on it though. Not sure which I prefer frankly – the way he was then, or how he got after …" his voice trailed off.

Turn. Ask the obvious questions, the ones they'd expect. Tom ploughed on, determined to elicit as much information as he could. "You said you're from the _Hiroshima_. I vaguely remember when your ship disappeared; reports were it was shot down by Romulans inside the Neutral Zone. Obviously that's not so?"

Nyere shook his head. "Nav system malfunctioned and before Massoud realized it, we were in the Zone and the Romulans were on us. Captain surrendered. Figured the Romulans would deal. I mean, we were a science vessel, no real strategic value, and the whole idea of the Zone was that we wouldn't shoot at each other."

Tom nodded. "As I said earlier, there were sixty-five of us on board. They stuck all the male officers, eight of us, in here. The two female officers and the crew, I have no idea what happened to them. We'd been hoping they at least had been exchanged in some kind of deal, but based on what you said that doesn't seem to be the case."

His voice cracked momentarily. "My wife worked in Astrometrics. She was pregnant with our first. A boy."

"I'm so sorry." Tom paused for a moment, imagining the loss the man must have felt, every hour of every day, for the last ten years.

"And the ship …?" He prodded gently, if only just to take the Lieutenant's mind off his current path. Some old wounds were sometimes best not touched, in his own experience.

Nyere shrugged. "Who the hell knows. Probably flew her to Romulus and took her apart for the greater glory of the Empire and whatever technology they could scrounge. Captain did make us ditch all the files and smoke what we had for weapons systems before surrendering."

Turn. "Main reason the Captain followed along with that crazy idea of Gorman's: He felt guilty about handing her over. Wallowed in it. Marinated, for ten fucking years. Guess suicide must have looked pretty good. Me, I refuse to give up hope that someone will find out about this place some day and do something about it. But I'm not a hero either, so maybe I should start. Giving up, I mean."

Turn after turn they took in the blazing heat, Tom trading news from home – much of it second-hand, as he himself had heard it after Voyager's return – for information about the camp. Until a small moan escaped from the man who had been sitting with his back to the hut in the burning sand, either dozing or watching them in brooding silence.

Toller's head lolled forward, and he collapsed slowly, gracelessly, onto his side. His mouth was open but not drooling; he was clearly dehydrated. "Shit," Nyere spat, but made no move to assist.

Tom grabbed him by the arm. "What's the protocol here, are we in worse crap if we don't help and let him die, or if we do and he survives? My guess would be the former." Nyere thought for a second, then nodded. It was all the encouragement Tom needed to run over to the collapsed man. He picked him up, threw him over his shoulder and carried him into the relatively more moderate temperature inside the hut, amazed at how light he was. Practically desiccated, he thought with clinical detachment.

Tom spent the next hour trying to bring Toller's temperature down by making a makeshift compresses out of the small towels each inmate had in their personal boxes. He liberally doused them in water from the cooler beside the auto-heater and applied them to his temples, neck and forearm. Intermittently, he stuck a moistened towel in the man's mouth to rehydrate him, feeling inordinately pleased when, after a few times, the barely conscious man started to suck reflexively at the cloths. After a while he managed to dribble some actual fluid into his mouth, and motioned Nyere to take over this part of the treatment.

Only the Lieutenant seemed to take an interest in what Tom was doing; the other two men lay on their respective bunks, dozing or staring impassively at the ceiling. Schmidt managed a brief "Shoulda let him die, if that's what he wanted," before turning his face to the wall in a show of disinterest. Tom resisted the temptation to snarl back that the man probably was in no condition to know _what_ he wanted; he did not, as understanding dawned that Schmidt was likely already a ways down that same road himself.

Once Toller seemed to have stabilized somewhat and with Nyere seemingly having lost interest in conversation for the time being, Tom went back to his bunk and flopped down. He spent a few minutes contemplating the ceiling above, trying to see what Schmidt found so fascinating in it.

It was really the underside of the roof, rather than a ceiling, made of dull grey metal, constructed out of a number of fitted panels, each of which had a small imprinted trademark in the corner. Instead of absorbing the sun's heat and radiating it out into the room, something in the composition of the panels – a special alloy? - seemed to either block or reflect it. It wasn't exactly air conditioning, but allowed the hut to maintain a somewhat more tolerable temperature than it would otherwise have had. When asked about it, Nyere shrugged but opined that only Ulak One seemed to enjoy this particular luxury, a fact Tom filed away carefully.

He tried to focus on the small mark; from the bunk, it looked like the letter 'C', with a smaller capital 'B' set into the curve. Not a script symbol he was familiar with from his six-week nighttime subliminal-instruction course in Basic Romulan he had volunteered for at the Kirk Centre (over B'Elanna's protests, as it had made him talk in his sleep).

But this was not the time to figure out the intricacies of fanciful Romulan manufacturing marks. Before long, Tom found his vision starting to blur with fatigue, and he dozed off.


	7. Meet the Neighbours

**Chapter 7 – Meet the Neighbours**

As the relentless Mokan sun was finally setting and cooler air began wafting into the hut, three Romulan guards turned up at the entrance. Two carried disruptors, while the third was balancing a stack of boxes. One of the armed men walked over to the still-prone, nearly motionless Toller and poked him with his weapon, disinterested calculation in his eyes. "Is this man in any shape to eat?"

The question was directed at Tom, who had woken up at their heavy-booted approach. He shook his head to clear out the haze and disorientation as the Romulan's words filtered into his consciousness. Clearly, the guards had been watching him minister to the stricken man, first from the guard towers and then from the monitoring devices hidden in the ceiling, and had him pegged as the guy to ask questions about the man's conditions – ranking officer entitlement be damned. Nyere didn't even seem to notice.

"He'll be fine in a little bit," Tom said with a yawn. "Leave it, and we'll see to it that he eats something." The Romulan with the boxes shrugged, deposited his load on the floor and all three left without another word.

The fatigue that had caused Tom to doze off was not dissipating; it had been evening when he left the Enterprise, and his body clock was beginning to tell him that some serious sleep might be a good idea. No doubt the cocktail of drugs he had been injected with, and the hour-long walk in the furnace that was the Ulak One yard, had taken their toll as well.

Food first, though. He reached for one of the boxes and found something that looked suspiciously like Starfleet emergency rations – compact, square and brown. Hard-pressed calories, yum. But there was also a piece of hard cheese, some flat bread, and to his surprise, a bit of fresh produce – a couple of lengthy tubers that looked like close relatives of the Terran carrot, and two unfamiliar round things that might be vegetables or fruit. He bit into one, and found it juicy and not too revolting. The texture was like something that might grow on a succulent plant, like cactus fruit.

"Where does this stuff come from, I wonder?" he asked into the room. "It doesn't taste replicated. You don't grow anything in the camp, do you?" A shrug from Nyere was the only response. Tom shrugged back, and ate the remaining vegetables before heading to Toller's bunk to try and interest him in his portion, figuring the water and fructose content, as well as the electrolytes in the slightly salty-tasting tubers, could only be helpful to the guy at this stage.

When he got to the bunk, Toller's eyes were open. They had lost the sunken, dried look Tom had noted earlier when lifting the unconscious man's lids, but now stared at him in undisguised resentment.

"Who the fuck are you, and why did you interfere?" he whispered hoarsely.

Schmidt intoned around a ration bar, "Toller, meet Tom Paris. Fresh conversational blood, just what you always wanted. You keep complaining about us boring you to death. So now you have the perfect reason to stay alive. Lucky for us."

Toller's eyes fixed on Tom even more sharply then before. "Tom Paris? Admiral Paris' brat? My, my, what a prize. Hey, you guys, know who this is?" His eyes darted from one to the other of his comrades, looking for responses that didn't come.

"Supposed piloting ace, killed three people and then lied about it. Was all over the news just over a year before the _Hiroshima_ left McKinley on her mission, don't you remember? Late '67 or early '68? Got kicked out of Starfleet and, from what I heard afterwards, turned into a total lush. Daddy's pride and joy. No wonder he ended up here. Just don't expect me to be nice to him."

He turned to Tom - who had rolled, then closed his eyes tightly but failed to shut out the spiteful voice - with a look that distilled nearly ten years of unfocused rage and hatred. "You're gonna regret what you did there. Scum."

Schmidt shrugged diffidently. "Like I said, fresh conversational blood. Should make things interesting for a bit. It's not like you're a prize yourself, asshole, getting Massoud killed like you did. He was a good man, unlike some. So shut the fuck up or go back out there, bake yourself some more and for God's sake, finish the job this time." He concluded picking over his meal, carefully placed the box by the front door – obviously a requirement - and laid back on his bunk to resume his examination of the ceiling.

Tom decided to ignore Toller's diatribe; really he had no choice, what with the Romulans listening in. Besides, what had just gone on between the two men seemed like an old exchange into which he just happened to have been introduced as a new variable. If anything, Toller's unwelcome reminder of the events of Caldik Prime could only serve to cement his credibility with any Romulans listening in: Tom Paris, twenty-four-carat Starfleet fuck-up.

But Tom also figured – since he wasn't entirely without the occasional vindictive streak himself - that if that's how Toller wanted to relate to the new kid on the cellblock, he could bloody well look after his nutritional needs himself. As far as Tom was concerned, his Hippocratic duty had been discharged in full.

He walked back to his bunk and stretched his long body out on the thin mattress. "Eat the fruit, Toller. It's good for you," he drawled. "And for Kahless' sake don't talk with your mouth full. Or at all, for that matter."

His feet dangled slightly over the end, even though he'd been told he'd been given the bunk that used to belong to Gorman, apparently the tallest of the human captives. Romulans were obviously not built for height, and were not inclined to make accommodations in their furniture for those who were.

Tom mentally took stock of what he had learned; certainly, on the surface the place compared favourably to other detention facilities he had heard of, or experienced first-hand. Compared to Akritiri, it was positively humane: Food, water, shelter, access to daylight, the ability to move around outside - for the humans, anyway. Disease prevention, however sullenly and unsympathetically administered. No clamps.

And yet.

Half of the human population had died, all at the hands of their captors, one of them in circumstances amounting to torture. At least one had gone crazy, two of the others were on their way. A favoured punishment was to allow prisoners to be subjected to physical abuse by other prisoners, possibly to …

_No, don't go there, Paris. … _Deep breath._ Right. Moving on. _

If any of the inmates – human, Romulan, Reman or Cardassian - had been convicted of a crime, Nyere hadn't mentioned it. That meant chances of release were probably nil. And then there was the cloak, the insidious secrecy. Few governments ever hid things they were proud of, Tom figured, as his thoughts started to blur and he felt a sudden yawn coming on.

As Tom felt his eyes close and sleep claim him for good, a single incongruous phrase rang like a chorus through his mind: _There's no place like home. There's no place like home. _And he thanked his wife and his best friend - circling in an illegal orbit overhead, protected by an equally illegal Romulan cloak - for the ruby slipper inside his gut.

…..

As Tom had figured, anytime five males slept in a small room together, it was a statistical near-certainty that at least one of them would snore. Since he did not, that had narrowed the odds on his cellmates. Sure enough, one of them – Karsgaard? – did, and to top it off, Toller kept flailing around and mumbling in his sleep, probably a knock-on effect from his earlier heatstroke.

In the best tradition of fighter pilots throughout the ages, Tom was able catch a few winks of sleep virtually anytime and anywhere, but he had also always been a light sleeper. And once he was awake, that was pretty well it, regardless of the time of day.

And so, well before the grey dawn of Mokan rose to breathe life back into the lizards that were hiding under the rocks above the prison camp, Tom Paris unfolded himself from his bunk and carefully stepped outside, trying not to wake his podmates. It would not be unusual for a new inmate to be unable to sleep, he figured, and he hoped he would not attract Romulan opprobrium by entering the open yard at an unusually early hour. Ulak One inmates, Nyere had told him, were free to leave their hut whenever they were so inclined – special privilege, not accorded to any of the other inmates.

Then again, where would they go, surrounded by a five-metre fence reinforced with a lethal force field and topped with razor wire …?

The night air was not exactly cool, given the radiant heat emanating from the sand in the yard and the hut's walls, but a huge improvement over the day-time furnace; the light breeze from the sea was an additional boon as Tom looked around to take what sights he could into memory. The perimeter areas were lit, glaringly so; nothing would be able to move across either one of the two barren corridors without detection. High overhead lights also illuminated the open areas between the various huts housing prisoners.

Ulak One, where the humans resided, was separate and apart from the others for reasons that probably made sense to the Romulans. The Cardassians, spread across two camps, had to make do with an hour of access to their small courtyard for an hour at a time, one at a time; the yard belonging to Ulak Three, which housed the "less nasty" Cardassians as Nyere had put it, could be seen at the far end of the humans' yard. Ulaks Three and One were separated by a well-lit corridor that appeared to be patrolled regularly.

According to Nyere, only the most compliant among the Reman prisoners, housed in Ulak Four – barely visible from One - were allowed outdoor 'recreation', but only as an earned privilege, presumably for providing useful intelligence or information. The inmates of Ulak Five were never seen outside.

Apparently, despite the physical distance between the Ulaks, a limited prison grapevine had established itself and functioned reasonably well. The guards tolerated the occasional shouting across fences – probably recording every word as potentially useful intel. They would step in only if insults started flying or matters under discussion, in their view, threatened the peace and security of the facility - or if one of them was in a rotten mood and needed an easy outlet.

In addition, members of the various groups met on occasion in the infirmary, and it was there and from the late engineer Gorman that Nyere had picked up most of his information on the Cardassian and Reman inmates. Since it was information known to the Romulan guards, and information that would rather obviously be passed to a newcomer at that, he had willingly shared this in the hut while he and Tom had worked on reviving the unappreciative Toller.

The Remans were, as Talar had indicated to Riker, indeed the putative remnants of Shinzon's rebellion; the fact that they had not simply been flushed out of an airlock or lined up against the nearest rock and phasered into their component particles had initially struck Tom as being rather un-Romulan. But Nyere had explained that apparently the newly constituted Romulan senate had passed a motion – not of leniency, but to ensure that individual members of the rebellion should 'remain available' for ongoing testimony against others in the movement as investigations proceeded. They now had been so 'available' for over two years. The thought made Tom shudder.

Putting his mind firmly back into the now, he surveyed his surroundings in silence, or whatever passed for that here, given the constant chirping of nocturnal insects and near-subsonic hum of the perimeter force fields. The omnipresent floodlights turned the night to near day, leaving only the barest glimpse of unfamiliar stars; additional roving searchlights glinted off the razor wire. The heat was still radiating in waves off the roofs of any buildings he could see from his vantage point. He could see the shadowy movements of guards in the lit towers or along the spaces in between the different camps and hear the occasional crackle of the perimeter fence, as another hapless creature discovered too late that it's back ridges had evolved just this much too high. Intermittent shadows darkening the lights suggested night-time flying creatures, chasing the ever-present bugs – the only living beings free to come and go as they wished.

As he stood there in the illuminated night, allowing his mind to reach into and absorb this place that he had been sent to investigate, it struck Tom as mildly curious that with all the advances of prison technology the old standbys such as floodlights, razor wire and perimeter patrols seemed to cross cultures, and prevail even as far as the Neutral Zone. Or maybe it was all just about symbolic trappings, like the oak paneling in court rooms, the blue or green of surgical gowns, the black uniforms of security personnel, the ripping off of a pip to signify supreme displeasure?

Symbols. Tom lightly touched the blue mark on his neck. TEP-FPSNZ-INS-0766. A symbol, alright. Give a person a label, and those who like to judge will be perfectly placed to do so - to point their fingers, and to turn away, without a further thought to what might lie beneath.

What this particular symbol meant to others had been made perfectly clear to him on a number of occasions, even after it had been covered up. What it meant to him – he'd figure it out, eventually. Probably not today, though.

Then, suddenly – a piercing cry cut through the night, followed by a wailing repetition of the same pleading phrase, over and over, in a language which Tom did not understand and didn't recall hearing before. Reman, probably. Not a cry of anger or murderous rage, like the voices of Akritiri that sometimes still echoed in his head. No - somebody was looking for answers, courtesy of a politely worded motion passed by the Romulan Senate. The cries were the response the good senators would never hear.

No sounds like this would ever be heard as the result of official questioning or mandated punishment in the Federation. Certainly not in places like Auckland, that well-manicured and impeccably run Rehab Colony, where people were at least theoretically pointed towards release and a possible public telling of their experiences.

No – if there were cries sent into the New Zealand night, those would always be limited to certain 'private functions' … And those in turn would involve gags, to ensure that the peaceful nights in those park-like surroundings under the Southern Cross were not shattered, like this night was on Mokan. He knew.

Tom shuddered involuntarily, gritted his teeth and quickly suppressed any impetus to examine these thoughts too closely. Clamped them down out of habit – just another gag put on the memories of silent screams, and the knowledge that the mouth they could not leave had been his own.

As the tortured pleading continued its disturbance of the night, this night, somehow in a detached portion of his brain Tom managed to mentally record its origin and location, adding it to the map of the facilities that his navigator's mind had started to create.

_Ulak Five – check._

Tom turned back to the hut planning to try and get more sleep, in the hope that he had buried the memories beyond the reach of nightmares and that whoever had been snoring had rolled over, when he heard the crunching of boots on sand. One of the guards, making his rounds.

"Hey you, Terran, back in your hut."

The guard was carrying a disruptor, but had not touched it – in threat or otherwise. Taking this as a good sign, Tom decided to try conversation. He was here, after all, to gather information from whatever source he could.

"Sorry, is there a curfew? I'm new here. I thought in this Ulak we could go out anytime."

The Romulan came closer, his disruptor lifting slightly now. Instead of responding to Tom's opening gambit, he looked him up and down slowly, deliberately. Then he nodded, and somewhat gruffly said,

"Yes, I see you are the new prisoner. But there is a curfew when I say there is one. There is one now, prisoner. Back in the hut."

"Thanks, understood. No disrespect meant, sir. But I have to say, this must be the most pleasant time in this place, quiet, and without that heat. Too bad we can't just sleep through the day and come out now, isn't it."

As he spoke, Tom made a show of slowly moving backwards towards the hut; no point in unnecessarily antagonizing the guard. He noticed with interest that the disruptor was drooping again. Maybe the guy wasn't averse to a chat after all, once their relative roles had been established to his satisfaction. He decided to give it another try.

"Is it always as hot as it was today, or does it get worse? I mean, are there seasons here?"

"Three seasons. Rain, Hot, and Really Hot. Right now, it's Hot."

"Oh great. How many seasons have you already spent here then? Must be tough."

_When in captivity, always show sympathy to your guards,_ they had been told at the Kirk Centre. _Most don't want to be there anymore than you do. _The ones that do, you can usually tell – don't try to talk to those. Allow the others to tell you of their frustrations with their superiors. Their marital difficulties. Their dreams and desires.

Tom remembered the incident in Voyager's first year, when a Captain of a Romulan science vessel had agreed to transmit messages to Starfleet - after Janeway had appealed to his sense of family. Romulans made a show of looking and acting superior, tough and suspicious, but unlike their Vulcan brethren, they apparently had an emotional side that could be tapped into. If one was careful.

The guard came closer, eyeing Tom warily but with a certain amount of curiosity now. He stopped for a moment, clearly weighing the benefits of indulging in a spot of conversation against the consequences of failing to assert his authority. Curiosity and boredom won out. "I am in the second year of a three-year assignment."

Tom shook his head in sympathy. "No idea how long I'll be here myself, but if you're not supposed to be behind bars - that's a long time. Do they let you bring your family?" _Those buildings outside the perimeter …_

The guard's eyes dropped and he shook his head, vehemently. _Bingo._ The sore spot. "No. The only person who has been able to bring his family is the Commander." The resentment in his voice was palpable, but all Tom could think was - _Talar brought his kids?_

"Good lord," he said instinctively. "They must be awfully bored here."

The guard snorted derisively, his voice dripping with favourite grievances now. "Hardly. He had the prisoners in Ulak Four dig them a pool, which the rest of us are only allowed to use once a week, for an hour. And they have a holosuite all to themselves, where they get to have their schooling and all the fun they want."

_A holosuite?_ Interesting. Tom hadn't known Romulus used holo-technology. But with Federation ships rumoured to be going in and out of the Neutral Zone, anything was possible_ … _"It must get awfully dull around here for you guys. Do you have much contact with Romulus, or other places?"

"Oh, once in a while. Occasionally we see ships coming in, like the one that dropped you off. But unless you're one of the Commander's personal protection squad you don't get to get close to them. The rest of us just get to watch them come down from afar. I liked the one you came in on. It seems … functional, with pleasing lines. The Commander's son likes it too, I am told. He is building a model of it."

_The mysterious Ares, no doubt._ "Must be tricky, doing that from memory. I used to build models when I was a kid. Sail boats though. I mean, you need to keep looking at the thing you're building models of a lot, or you screw up. Has he got pictures? Else, how often does he get to see that thing?"

"Often enough, about every couple of …" The guard stopped suddenly, his eyes narrowing. "You ask too many questions, Terran. Back in your hut. _Now._"

He lifted the disruptor and pointed it at Tom's face. Not slow to figure that the conversation was over, Tom raised his hands in a defensive gesture and slowly moved back towards the entrance of the hut.

…..

The morning, once it actually broke, brought an opportunity for ablutions. One by one the prisoners were told to move out to a shower facility at the back of the hut, which Tom had failed to notice until now, blocked as it had been by a force-field reinforced fence. The four regular inmates went to the shower one by one, in a sullen procession the order of which appeared to have been determined years ago and never changed. Tom went last, with an interest he carefully managed to disguise as fearful apprehension.

The guard, a different one from the one Tom had attempted to chat up the night before, but wearing the same air of bored resentment, motioned Tom with his disruptor to take off his clothes. "You have five minutes," he growled – information which Tom understood was given in something close to kindness, since the newcomer could not possibly know this and might end up with skin covered in soap until the next shower, three days hence. Tom took the hint and lathered and rinsed early and quickly, taking the reminder of the time just letting the cool water run over his head and – unsuccessfully - trying to figure out an unfamiliar gizmo of Romulan origin that might or might not have been a razor. The guard left as soon as the water stopped, his duties over.

The towel was far too small for someone of Tom Paris's height, but the rising heat and dry air made thorough toweling quite unnecessary; in addition, the slight breeze on his wet skin made for probably the last minute or two of relative comfort the day would bring. And so Tom simply waited for his skin to dry off before getting back into his clothes – no change having been provided for those, the prospect was not inviting – when he heard a wolf whistle from the end of the yard.

A tall, stockily built, solitary Cardassian stood in the much smaller yard in Ulak Three, and made a show of eying Tom's lean body up and down through the two fences.

"What have we here?" he shouted, in heavily accented but flawless and rather colloquial Standard. "Fresh meat? _Nice._ I like 'em fair. Bit pale and scrawny for my taste, but not bad for a human. Haven't had one of you guys for a few days now. Hopefully, it won't be long before we get to know you a bit better, and they send you here, not to the bloody Guls. I promise, I'll be first in line." He licked his lips demonstratively and made a universally obscene gesture with his hands.

Tom's throat went dry, and his thoughts shattered.

_No. Not again … The Bolian … Don't … No, he's Cardassian … Dad?_

Slowly, deliberately, he succeeded in clamping down on the gibbering panic that had sent his heart racing.

_Two lines of fencing, loaded with lethal force fields, between him and me_. _They're just taunts. _

_Breathe, Paris. Fucking breathe._

Once Tom managed to reassert control over his racing mind and his over-productive adrenal glands, part of him understood that this was a test – carried out quite deliberately in full view of the guard towers. A test of what, he wasn't certain, but some return posturing was probably called for. He was glad the man was too far away to see the sweat beading on his forehead, to hear his still-panting breath.

And so Tom forced himself to make a show of putting his clothes back on slowly, leisurely – not provocatively, but top first, in order to demonstrate that he didn't care about the taunts – before finally responding to the man, his breathing under control now. "What, you guys don't have any decently built bodies over there? Or is it you don't have showers, so you can't come too close to each other without tossing your ration bars?"

The Cardassian looked at him with calculation in his eyes, and something close to an appreciative smile curled one of his lips. "Ah. I get it. You're the new Gorman. Funny man. _ Very_ funny. Hope you last longer than him though, and aren't quite as stupid. He managed to get himself _and _a bunch of my friends killed when the guards took him and his Captain down. In _our_ camp."

"Sorry to hear that," Tom replied. "Nothing to do with me, though. Before my time. What happened?"

He was intrigued to see the Cardassian shake his head 'no' almost imperceptibly, before replying, "I wasn't there either. _Guards said_ it was some kind of fight. I heard Gorman said the wrong thing to someone, managed to get his wires crossed somehow. Romulans separated them with a plasma cannon. _Poof, up in smoke._" His hands mimicked an explosion, but his fingers stayed pointing towards the sky just a little longer than strictly necessary.

Tom nodded slowly, holding the man's eyes to the extent possible, forcing himself to see past the raised, snake-like ridges, the thick, corded neck, the unblinking, lashless eyes. _Said the wrong things. Wires crossed. Up in smoke. _ Message received, with thanks. Although Nyere should have been the one to hear this, not the man who knew better than anyone other than Commander Talar that the distress call had in fact gone out. Nyere would have given his eyeteeth for this news.

"I'll keep that in mind," Tom said. "At least for now. Be seein' you."

"You do that, pretty boy. You keep that in mind." The Cardassian licked his lips lasciviously, before turning his back and resuming what appeared to be the purpose of his presence outside: a quick march around the small yard, stretching his legs and swinging his arms wide in what would likely be the only physical exercise he would get for some time. Kahless knew how many they were to a pod in his camp, how exercise time was allocated.

The encounter had clearly run its course; any further exchange might attract unwanted attention. Tom ran through what he had heard in his mind. The Cardassian clearly wanted the Terrans to know that Gorman had succeeded in building his transmitter in their camp, but did his final words signal that they were interested in renewing the collaboration, or was he warning the humans away?

Not that it mattered to Tom particularly; his focus now, apart from learning more about the prison, was on getting the four humans out in his own way. He had the means; all he needed was the opportunity.

And how could you read a Cardassian, anyway, and why would you want to collaborate with them? You sure as hell couldn't trust them. His father was living proof.

Still … The Cardassian's voice when he referred to 'the Guls' was laced with ill-disguised contempt, and Ulak Three _had_ co-operated with Gorman.

Who, then, were the Cardassians in Ulak Three? The ones Gorman had sought out, voluntarily, again and again?

Still breathing a little faster than normal, Tom picked up his small box of convenience articles. It contained soap and a toothbrush, and the obscure shaving thing. He had tried to glide it over his chin, pushing at random openings and managing to figure out how it worked just before the water had run out.

Running his hand over his still mostly stubbly chin, he imagined the look of disgust that would cross B'Elanna's face were she to see him like this. During their time on Voyager, when his mind had been taken over by an alien ship he had called _Alice_ and his personal hygiene had taken a distinct nose dive, the first thing the love of his life had done - a mere token minutes after their emotional reunion - was to drag him into the sonic shower and hand him his razor. For B'Elanna Torres, absence of facial hair in her mate would trump sentiment any day.

If she'd still speak to him at all, when he got back.

Craving nothing so much as the normalcy of his family and the toy-strewn familiarity of his quarters, Tom gave one last longing look at the shower, now dry and glinting dully in the already sweltering morning sun. His eye was caught by something that looked like lettering in the centre of the showerhead, and he moved in for a closer inspection.

There it was: the same logo he had noticed on the ceiling tiles: near-circle 'C', enclosing a smaller 'B'. Definitely not Romulan – no, in the bright light of day, there was no doubt: this was Terran Standard script.

What had the guard said? A shuttle – one that looked like the Flyer - came by every couple … what? Weeks? Months? He had caught himself before finishing the sentence.

But did it really matter how often a Federation ship visited this place, in the face of the mere fact that one did? It didn't take a genius to figure out that such a ship likely had brought at least some of the things that had equipped the place where the human prisoners were held.

Tom cursed softly to himself and headed back inside the hut. Over seven years in the Delta Quadrant he had learned to trust his own intuition more than any sophisticated sensor array, acquired wisdom or command decision.

And right now, that little voice inside his head was telling him with increasing insistence that what he had seen to date inside the prison facility on Mokan was little more than a glimpse through a keyhole.


	8. Turn, Turn, Turn

**Chapter 8 – Turn, Turn, Turn**

The bridge of the Enterprise was quiet, but even the most indifferent observer would have been able to tell the tension that could be cut with a laser beam. Voices were heard infrequently, and never raised. It was as if a pall had been cast over what was normally a bustling centre of frenetic activity, with the crew awaiting events that they were hoping would not come.

Once Lieutenant Marc O'Reilly had maneuvered the ship into position, holding her in a geostationary orbit over Mokan - precisely positioned amid an array of small cloaking satellites - was mostly a job for the computer. Nonetheless, here he was, in position at the helm, ready to take her out of orbit at the drop of an emergency command.

But the state of constant readiness for disaster, some twenty-four hours into the XO's crazy mission, combined with absolutely nothing happening onboard and no way to obtain information from the surface, was beginning to fray the pilot's nerves. A coffee break in Ten Forward had confirmed to him that this edginess was shared by staff in the transporter room, where Paris would arrive if and when he pushed that magic button. Security staff were standing by with phasers in case he brought unintended company, given the range of the gizmo Kim and Torres had built.

O'Reilly strummed his console with his fingers. He was still trying to figure out what might possibly motivate a guy to say 'yes' to a mission so obviously insane and dangerous, not to mention objectively unnecessary by all accounts. The ship's grapevine – greatly helped by first-hand testimony of the unobtrusive but very observant Nurse Ogawa and some equally sharp-eared staff in Engineering – had been very clear on that last point. The whole operation smacked of a personal frolic of the Captain's, based on the gods knew what hunch he was acting on this time. Maybe there was something to the stories about the guy's time on the _Enterprise D _and the XO's time on _Voyager_ having turned them both into adrenaline junkies?

On the lower decks, opinion was sharply divided between those who considered Paris a selfless hero and those who thought he was a complete nutcase, with only a slight numeric advantage given to the former (likely because the Commander was still basking in the afterglow of his performance during the Andorian incident). Personally, O'Reilly figured the two possibilities were not mutually exclusive. Maybe you had to be one, to be the other?

He turned around to check on the other officers. Harry Kim was busy at the Ops console, still trying to find ways of busting his sensors through the cloak so they could locate Paris if he didn't come back on his own accord. _Should have done that before sending the guy down there, _O'Reilly thought a little uncharitably_._ Still, the Lieutenant's dedication and tenacity were admirable.

Jorak, Acting XO in Paris' absence and currently in charge of the bridge, was in a serious – and mostly one-sided - discussion with Ayala, commanding him in clipped tones to keep the transporter security crew sharp. He'd walked in on them earlier to find one having gone to the head without calling for a replacement; clearly that would not do, given the XO's one-way shot back to the ship would directed into that transporter room, and no one knew under what conditions he might return.

The Captain, for his part, was cloistered in the ready room with the ship's Counselor. Deanna Troi had been Very, Very Unhappy with the boss when she had found Paris gone without her having been given an opportunity to see him before he left. Between her and the Chief Engineer, the atmosphere during morning briefing had been like an arctic wind blowing towards the Captain's seat. It would be especially hard for Riker to keep the Counselor's wrath at bay when it followed him right into his quarters, O'Reilly thought. The time that had passed did not seem to have appeased her one iota, judging by the frown she had still been wearing when she entered the ready room …

A sudden beep drew Marc's attention back to the conn. _Shit._ He punched in a few commands to verify his instruments' findings. "Commander," he called out to Jorak, "Vessel approaching, I think. High orbit, above the cloaking net, but close enough for the fish finder to register something."

"Captain to the Bridge, urgent," Jorak said in his usual clipped tone. "Mr. Kim …"

"I'm on it," Harry said, his fingers flying over his console. "But the cloaks make it hard to see what's above. Something bigger, like a war bird, maybe would register – but this seems to be fairly small. If we want to get more information we'd have to leave our present position and go above the cloak, but then we risk being seen."

Riker had entered the bridge during his last statement. "Hold orbit. I'm not tipping our hand and let it be known that we haven't left while Commander Paris is still down there. Hold her steady in our present position, Mr. O'Reilly, but do try and track that vessel for as long as you can. With any luck you'll be able to extrapolate its course, whoever they are, and we'll have an idea where they'll be when we need to know."

"Acknowledged, sir. Wonder if it's the _Ares_." O'Reilly sighed deeply. "I wish we could track signatures properly. This _looks _like one for a Flyer model shuttlecraft but because of the cloaking distortions I can't tell for sure. But the vessel does appear to be leaving orbit and heading for the surface. Course extrapolation suggests … yes, destination is definitely the prison camp, sir."

The bridge lapsed back into silence, the tension even greater than before. They hadn't been able to track the registration of a Flyer-model shuttle named _Ares_ to any known Federation database; yet, the spectre of its existence now hung in the air like a cold breath.

Will Riker and Harry Kim exchanged uneasy glances. The incoming ship - whether it was the mysterious _Ares_ or another Federation ship - represented a clear threat to Tom Paris, who had supposedly been dropped off (for a price) by a Starfleet Captain concerned about political pressure and career implications. Whoever was onboard that ship might well be in a position to confirm that the present Captain of the _USS Enterprise _was among the least likely individuals in the Federation to do any such thing.

And they had no way of warning Tom. Moreover, the one thing Harry and B'Elanna, despite their technical prowess, had not been able to accomplish was to rig the one-way transporter to respond to an external trigger.

Deanna Troi, who had followed her husband out of the ready room, raised her head slightly, listening to the low-voiced exchanges. Her empathic senses could taste her fellow officers' concerns, like a cloud of acrid smoke hanging over the bridge. She drew a deep breath and headed towards the turbolift and Engineering. No one stopped her.

O'Reilly rolled his shoulders and his neck to try and relax them as he'd seen the Commander do many times during their training sims, ready to fly the ship like a bat out of hell if and when instructed to do so.

But by all the gods, he hated having to fly blind.

…..

Tom returned to the hut from his shower to find his four human companions back in essentially the same positions they had occupied the day before, and likely every day before that for several years. Toller and Schmidt lay prone on their respective bunks, Karsgaard was busy fidgeting with the auto-heater and his teapot, while Nyere was pacing up and down the centre of the hut.

Karsgaard wordlessly handed him a cup of 'mint' tea, which Tom accepted with a grateful nod and a small smile before stowing his shower box at the foot of his bunk and sitting down. Nyere stopped his pacing, and looked at him with a challenge in his dark eyes.

"You really the son of an admiral, like Toller says?"

"Last time I looked. Retired admiral, now. Mostly."

"Then, won't he miss you and start asking questions in Starfleet when you don't come back with the Enterprise?"

_Bloody hell._ No easy answer to that one, not within earshot of the listening devices. It certainly would not do to mention the lengths to which Owen Paris had gone to get Starfleet to establish contact with _Voyager _when he had learned that his only son was not dead but stranded in the Delta Quadrant, nor the fuss he had kicked up with Nacheyev's office only a week ago, at mere suspicious movements in Tom's bank accounts.

"Who knows? The old man stopped looking over my shoulder over ten years ago." Technically true, but the denial of what he and his father had found again came at a price to his conscience that Tom knew he'd have to pay later. He hoped that his father would understand. "In other words, don't count on it."

"Shit." Nyere lapsed into a brooding silence.

"Shouldn't come as a surprise," Toller opined. "Who'd want to come rescue a killer and a liar, who did everything he could to discredit the uniform he was wearing?"

Toller had revived considerably overnight and following the shower; at the sound of his spiteful, reedy voice, Tom found himself wishing rather uncharitably that he'd just go back outside and get on with killing himself, maybe with better success this time around. But it wasn't hot enough for suicide attempts yet, not even half-assed ones, and so Toller stayed inside, trying instead to externalize his demons by spreading his venom to a largely disinterested audience. Nyere ignored him completely, while Karsgaard merely tut-tutted over his teapot, which had apparently developed an unexpected stain that held his interest to the exclusion of almost anything else.

Their post-shower morning meal had been delivered the same way as dinner had been, in boxes, accompanied by listless guards with disruptors at the more-or-less ready. Only Tom looked up at their entrance, cataloguing their movements and calculating the state of their attention to what they were doing. Monotony has a way of taking the edge of vigilance, he had learned quite some time ago, and response times could be counted on as including a crucial moment of hesitation born of momentary disorientation. He filed that thought for future reference.

The food was similar to what the prisoners had been given for dinner: hard rations, reconstituted juice - a bright orange liquid in which floated the undissolved, dehydrated crystals of something that might at some point have had remote contact with a citrus-like fruit - some fruit and another one of the carrot-like things, plus a container of what could be yoghurt or another dairy product. Tom was suddenly struck by the surreal thought that the Romulans were hiding a herd of six-legged cows along with a detention facility here in the Neutral Zone, and he grinned despite himself.

"Whadd're ya smirkin' at, Admiral's brat? Find something funny here?" Toller immediately demanded to know. The man seemed to be focused on him for some reason – perhaps to convince himself that there was someone lower than himself. It was a familiar tune, one Tom Paris had heard many times in Auckland and elsewhere, but to his surprise he found that he was no longer interested in listening. Perhaps that meant he had made some kind of progress somewhere along the line? It certainly didn't mean that he wasn't getting annoyed.

He shot Toller a dirty look, but otherwise refused to engage. The story of what happened to Massoud reverberated in his mind, and he had no wish to experience the more unpleasant aspects of Romulan detention policy during his - hopefully - temporary stay. Certainly not for some rat like Toller. It occurred to Tom that this particular calculus probably explained how the _Hiroshima_'s officers had managed to live with the guy for nearly ten years without killing him; that said, he gave himself another twenty-four hours, tops, all sympathy for Toller's circumstances aside and potential consequences be damned. He sighed heavily and examined his 'breakfast'.

As a die-hard aficionado of peanut-butter-and-jelly toast, Tom Paris generally found anything else unworthy of his nutritional attention in the morning. He had gotten out of the habit of trying alternatives on Voyager, where Neelix' multi-coloured attempts at reproducing crew 'favourites' had taught him early on that it was wiser to stick to just tea or coffee (or whatever the little Talaxian had served as a substitute). Any deviation usually resulted in a rather uncomfortable day at the helm, or found him bouncing around spatial anomalies trying to keep quasi-French toast from splattering all over the console. Besides, the events of last night and this morning had affected his appetite, and so he stuck to the liquids, the fruit and the yoghurt-like substance, which was surprisingly palatable. The carrot-thing he put in his pocket for later; nobody took up his offer of the extra ration bar.

The empty time after breakfast brought, if nothing else, the opportunity to take another turn around the yard with Nyere, the only one among the four survivors of the _Hiroshima_ with whom it seemed possible to carry on an intelligent conversation. Moreover, Tom's discovery of the Terran script in the shower gnawed on him, and the Cardassian's report on Gorman's possible success – however cryptic – suggested that he might need to disclose the true nature of his mission to the Lieutenant sooner rather than later. When, was a question he was not yet ready to answer.

"Walk with me before it gets too hot?" he asked in a voice that he hoped held at least some promise of an interesting discussion. Nyere shrugged and nodded. Tom could follow the calculation on his face almost to the last decimal: even if the newcomer was the 'scum' that Toller had claimed he was, the mere prospect of fresh conversation, news from home and a temporary absence from the Lieutenant's companions of ten years must have looked like a pretty attractive option.

As it turned out, Nyere actually seemed to regard Toller's venomous attacks on Tom more as a badge of honour than cause for condemnation; the man rose even higher in his estimation as a result.

"Sorry about Toller," Nyere said as soon as they got outside, his tone sincerely apologetic. "He's getting worse. One of these days …" He let the thought dangle, but drew his finger across his neck in a universal gesture.

Tom snorted in double appreciation. "Thanks. He's not entirely wrong, you know; I fucked up big time when I was young. But that's a long time ago, and a few things have happened since."

"I dare say," Nyere replied, looking at Tom's sweat-damp neck meaningfully. Tom rolled his eyes mentally, before remembering the guard tower. Now was not the time to explain the origins of the mark, and he was not particularly interested in regurgitating, or further elaborating on, the story Riker had fed to the Romulan Commander. So he just shrugged.

Turn. Their back was to the tower. "Hey listen, I heard mention of Ulak Six when I arrived. Any idea what that is, and who's in it? Based on what you told me, I've only gotten up to five – this one, two for the Cardassians, one for the Romulans and the lesser Remans, and … the Reman interrogation facility."

Nyere stared at him thoughtfully. "We don't know. We've heard it mentioned once or twice by the guards, but it doesn't seem to be here. Why are you so interested? Ulak One not good enough for you?"

Tom snorted. "I'm just a curious guy."

Turn. "So, where are you from on Terra?"

"California, San Francisco. Father the Admiral, remember. You?"

"South Africa. Parents have a winery near Capetown. Idiot that I am, I had to go into Starfleet. _See the galaxy, have adventures_." He shook his head. "I could be on a porch overlooking our the vineyards right now, glass of our award-winning merlot in hand. You're not the only one who fucked up."

Tom paused, momentarily distracted. "_That_ Nyere? Man, that's good stuff your family is making. The 2372 Reserve in particular. As good as the Chateau Picard pinot from that year. Better, if you like your wines nice and fat. Which I do."

Nyere sighed. "You know your wines, I gather. 2372, eh. Good to hear my folks are still at it, even with me gone." His eyes focused on a point far beyond the guard tower as they walked, his family's presence suddenly, painfully, almost within his grasp, through a glass remembered.

Turn. "I assume you've noticed the little mark on the ceiling tiles? The thing Schmidt keeps staring at when he's not observing the wildlife?"

Nyere, pulled from his reverie, nodded his surprise. "Yeah. Some kind of Romulan trademark. It's all over the place here."

"I noticed it on the shower head this morning. Where else have you seen it?"

"The perimeter fence and the generators in the guard towers." Tom drew a sharp breath at that. B'Elanna's readings had been right.

"The auto-heater Karsgaard loves so much. Some of the med equipment in the infirmary. Why do you care?" Tom shrugged, shook his head as the tower came back into view.

Turn. A topic the Romulans would expect him to discuss, even in view of the guard tower. "One of the Cardassians chatted me up this morning. Big guy. Said he knew Gorman."

"That'll be Pokat. He always talks to us when he's in the yard. Decent guy for a snake and a good source of gossip, once you get past the posturing. And yeah, he would know Gorman; guy was over on that side often enough, punishment for his smart mouth." They walked in silence to the end of the yard, Nyere's jaw clenching in memory of the fallen engineer.

Turn. Before Tom could speak again, Nyere volunteered additional information. "As I said yesterday, for the last several months, Gorman went over to Three to work with some of the Cardassians on a transmitter. Did it based on some bits that blew off the perimeter fence, some stuff the Cardassians managed to scrounge in the med lab plus my Romulan shaver. The thing operates with some resonating frequencies that apparently are quite useful. The guards never figured out that I don't really need one, and so never noticed it missing. The Romulans also never expected collaboration, and the Cardassians always made it look like Gorman was getting the punishment they thought he was. Took him several times to get through to them, get them to listen. Pokat was one of the ones who helped him early on."

"Makes sense, given some of the other stuff the guy said."

Turn. They walked in silence, Nyere lost in thought; Tom shaking his head at the sacrifices Gorman had made, ending with his life. What Gorman must have gone through, before he managed to find allies among the men to whom he had been sent as a sentient toy … Tom's throat constricted, and he found himself touching the mark on his neck even as he swallowed hard. What kind of man would willingly risk his life, his physical and mental integrity like that for the sake of others?

Turn. _Focus. _"That trademark. It's not Romulan. It's Terran."

"Well, sure, it looks a bit Terran but it can't be. It _can't_ be. I mean, how the hell would _you_ know? You read Romulan?"

"Yes I do, as a matter of fact. Enough to know that this isn't Romulan script. You said the Cardassians mentioned something about Federation involvement, but you didn't believe them. What exactly did they say?"

"Pokat or one of his buddies hollered at us at some point that a new lot of inmates had just been delivered to Mokan by a Federation vessel. I mean, that's just bullshit. Right?"

Turn. _Kahless. _Tom walked the length of the yard in silence. More pieces were sliding into place. Talar, expecting a Federation vessel that looked like the Flyer, mentioning his expectations of a 'drop-off' to Riker. Happy to take a prisoner from him, very few questions asked, confessing disconcertingly little surprise that Starfleet might be aware of their operation. The Cardassians' claim. Federation energy signatures. Now this mark, practically confirming Federation sourcing of some of the very building blocks of this prison.

The Enterprise's mission, at the request of Admiral Nacheyev, had been to verify or dispel rumours of Federation vessels breaching the Neutral Zone.

Pieces of a puzzle, but still no picture. Starfleet could not be possibly be involved, he figured, or the Enterprise would not have been sent here by the Admiralty to investigate. And surely the Fleet would not leave some of their own to rot in a prison like this, for over a decade, without trying to get them out? Or would they … ?

One thing was certain though: if there was Federation complicity in this place in the middle of nowhere, and if the ship called _Ares_ was close to due, Commander Tom Paris would not be able to stick around in this camp much longer without someone figuring out that he was not a part of this cozy relationship.

The sound of a shuttle screaming in over the hills, just outside of their view of the high fence and guard towers, tipped the balance. Tom weighed his options, made his call. He'd probably had gotten all the useful intel out of the camp that he could already, and if the extraction succeeded, Nyere would have all the time in the world to provide whatever else he might have.

Turn. "Mbako." He used the Lieutenant's first name deliberately, to get his attention. "Let's slow down, and whatever you hear me say next, keep walking. Same pace. Keep your hands relaxed. No facial twitches when we turn. Think you can do that?"

Nyere looked up at Tom questioningly, and with a slight air of superiority sneaking into his voice. "Certainly. I'm a Starfleet officer. I can handle whatever you can throw at me, _Crewman_."

Tom smiled grimly at the attempted put-down, and took a deep breath. "I'm not a crewman, but I'll let that pass. Now hear me. Gorman's message got through. I'm here hoping to get you out. _Keep the fuck walking, Lieutenant_!"

Nyere had halted involuntarily, but at the sudden sharp command his feet automatically resumed their course, even as his head was clearly spinning in several directions at once. At least he managed to await their next turn before stating his conclusion.

"Bullshit," he stated flatly. "Toller was right. You're a fucking liar. No one, _no one_ gets that prison mark on their neck for no reason. Certainly no Starfleet officer. So why the hell should I believe you?"

Tom sighed heavily. _There we go again._ "Because I'm telling the truth. The mark is from shortly after you guys were captured. A long time ago. What it's for is not relevant; someday I may tell you, hopefully over a glass of your family's merlot." He looked down at the shorter man, injected his voice with the command authority that he had once thought belonged exclusively to his father, but that he found ever more frequently – and increasingly easily - coming out of his own mouth.

"But now listen up, Lieutenant, this is important. I _may_ – and that's an important _may_ because we didn't have time to actually test the technology properly – be able to get as many as all four of you out of here. We'd have to get really close together though, about an eight-foot radius I'm told. And you only get one shot."

Turn. Time for deep breathing, and deeper silence. No point making idle conversation now. Tom slowly, deliberately, placed one foot before the other, hoping Nyere would fall into the pattern and just follow, keep up the rhythm, not raise suspicion.

Tom couldn't help but be fascinated by the emotions he saw playing across the shorter man's face as he looked down on him, and hoped they would be lost on any Romulan observers. Scepticism. Fear and anger. Disbelief. Slowly, a gleam of something new, a stranger to these features: Hope. Quickly suppressed, replaced by an attempt at impassivity. It did not quite succeed; Nyere's forehead kept twitching slightly as he began to imagine possibilities he had once thought lost.

Turn. "The transporter is cloaked against detection and implanted in my gut. Here." He pointed to the place where the device was located, resisting the urge to feel for the comfort of the slight bulge that indicated the trigger.

"I don't know how I can get the others, especially Toller, to follow my command to come close enough to catch them. And you know better than I do, whether we can get them out of the hut to tell them what they need to know - without cluing in the Romulans. Neither Schmidt nor Karsgaard have gone outside since I've been here, except to shower. So I need to count on you, when the opportunity arises, to herd them towards me, in whichever way possible. Anyone who doesn't come close enough will be left behind. Is that clear, _Lieutenant_?"

Nyere nodded, numbly, seemingly incapable of speech for now. Just as well. Tom silently congratulated himself for having clued into the fact that the man didn't really enjoy being in charge; maybe to some extent he had even forgotten to think for himself. Clearly, he was craving instructions - a good officer, smart and diligent, every bit as tenacious and dedicated as any of Tom's crewmates on Voyager, but not really command material. Here was to hoping that he'd just follow orders when it came down to the crunch.

Turn. Time to go back in the hut, to think how to create the necessary opportunity without tipping off the Romulan observers, to rehydrate and rest. The heat was already getting unbearable.

…..

By early afternoon, none of the _Hiroshima_'s officers had left the hut; even Toller had evidently decided that harassing Tom was more satisfying for now than courting another heat stroke. But they remained spread on their respective bunks.

One of the guards who had brought their midday meal had made a comment about Toller's constant attacks on the newcomer, clearly confirming that they were watching closely. Even as Tom marveled at the culture of paranoia that would generate this level of observation of the mundane existence of hapless prisoners, he had to admit that he had no idea what the Romulans' response time to an actual incident might be – minutes? Seconds?

He decided to make a move the moment when three of the officers were off their bunks at at the same time. Karsgaard was in mid-tea ceremony, Nyere was pacing, and Toller was standing in the middle of the room recounting for the umpteenth time what a disgrace to the Paris name the scum in their midst must have been. Only Schmidt remained prone on his back.

Tom unfolded his length from his own bunk and took a few steps towards Toller, even as he glared meaningfully at Nyere, mouthing the word "now". He took Toller's arm and yanked it behind his back, causing the man to yelp in surprised pain even as his other hand touched his stomach to look for the minute swelling that indicated the location of the transporter. As he had hoped, Schmidt – his old instincts as a security officer not that deeply buried - spat out a curse and rose from his bunk to separate the two antagonists before the Romulans would come and seize them.

Nyere, with a flash of initative that surprised even himself, grabbed Karsgaard's teapot out of the man's hand to get him to follow him into the middle of the room, towards Tom and possible freedom. With a yelp of indignation, the Ensign did just that.

And then, just as Tom's looked around once more to confirm whether the rest of the _Hiroshima_'s officers were sufficiently close, three guards with disruptors drawn burst into the hut. They were followed by a Romulan whom he instantly knew – by the air of superiority the man carried around like a mantle, as much as by Will Riker's description - to be the camp's Commander, Talar.

…..

Toller unsuccessfully tried to twist out of Tom's grip, and shouted shrilly, "He started it! He attacked me! He's a criminal and must be punished …"

Talar nudged his head in silent command towards one of the guards, who stepped forward and, with a practiced chop, hit Toller squarely on the chin with the butt of his disruptor. The man went down like a sack of flour. _Still in range. _Tom's mind made the calculation with a curious detachment just as the same guard pointed the weapon at his midriff, right at the spot where Beverly Crusher had implanted the cloaked transporter. Tom's hand froze instantly in its journey towards the device.

Talar took a few steps in the room, before wrinkling his nose at the smell of unwashed clothing and thinking the better of it. He paused just inside the entrance, flanked by the other two guards. Tom noted that their armed presence had the effect of slowly herding Nyere and a distraught Karsgaard closer to the centre, ever closer to him. _Good. Now about that disruptor …_

Talar finally spoke. And directed himself at Tom.

"So, Mr. Paris. Or do you prefer _Captain Proton?_" He threw something at Tom's feet. The article bounced off the hard dirt floor and came to rest just beside Toller's head.

A cold fist gripped Tom's stomach as he recognized it for what it was: a holovid, _The Adventures of Captain Proton – Chapters XXXI – XXXVI_ ("_The Final Chapters:_ _Including the Long-Awaited 'Lair of the Vampire Worm!'"). _The very latest release, scheduled to come out just after the Enterprise had left Andor. Prominently displayed on the package were his name and a short biography, noting his current assignment. The front sported a sharp, black-and-white animated holo-image – taken by the Doc - of himself as Proton, looking his leather-clad, gum-chewing, rakish best, ray gun in hand. The picture had been specially selected by Jenny Delaney, with B'Elanna's amused assistance, for 'that _cute hunk_ factor that may help us crack the female market'.

"A gift for my son, delivered to me just a couple of hours ago. Fame can be a curse, can't it, _Commander_." Nyere's head flew up at the Romulan's use of Tom's rank, and his mouth opened slightly. Talar continued, unnoticing.

"Certainly your true background explains your remarkable lack of anxiety at being dropped here, as well as your unusual proclivity for Klingon curses." At Tom's narrowing eyes, he added superciliously, "Oh yes, _Commander, _we have been watching, and taking note. You are not nearly as good an actor as you would probably like to think you are."

Talar seemed to be drawing considerable pleasure of addressing Tom as his rank equal, now that he had him at his mercy. "I assume then, that the _Enterprise_ has not gone very far, Commander? I doubt that they would leave without their First Officer now, would they?"

Schmidt, who had remained stock still behind Tom, afraid to take a step back in the face of the disruptor, let out a sharp curse – the first genuine emotional reaction Tom had witnessed from him yet, apart from his instinctive attempt to prevent the altercation between him and Toller. He might act apathetic most of the time, but he was clearly still all there, and the mention of Starfleet's flagship being nearby and its supposed First Officer within arm's reach had seemingly coaxed his long-suppressed spirit out of its hiding place.

Karsgaard, for his part, had grabbed his teapot back from Nyere's hands with a huffing sound and now bustled over to pick up the holovid from beside Toller's still unconscious body. In his single-minded concentration on what mattered to him, he appeared utterly unfazed by the guard with the disruptor standing right beside the box. "No littering in the hut," he muttered indignantly.

Tom looked down at the disruptor still pointed at his gut, feeling the nozzle press into his abdomen. If he moved his hand towards it to reach the transport device, the guard would fire without a doubt.

_They'll send me to the Cardassians … I can't. Not again. _Fighting down a rising panic and the dark veil that seemed to want to descend over his mind, he cast his eyes around the room.

And nearly froze again, as he remembered his purpose of only a few moments ago.

_All in range. _

Plus one Romulan. _Shit. Can't be helped._

_Think, Paris. _

Coming to a decision, he snarled at Nyere, who was standing a few steps behind the guard, in his father's sharpest command voice: "Hit his arm – _NOW_!"

As if in slow motion, he watched the Lieutenant take one single step forward while swinging his arms back and bringing both fists together. And without any hesitation whatsoever Nyere aimed sharply for the elbow of the Romulan holding the disruptor, even as the other two guards lifted theirs and Talar yelled an unintelligible command of his own.

Tom felt the weapon's muzzle drive into his stomach, and with a curious lack of interest waited for it to discharge. Instead, he heard the Romulan guard gasp in surprise and felt him loosen his grip on his weapon, even as the familiar-but-different tingle of the one-way transporter caressed Tom's skin.

As the bile from the disruptor's hard impact on his gut rose in his throat and he started to double up with pain, Tom's last conscious thought was that whoever was in the transporter room of the Enterprise would probably not be ready for an armed Romulan – no more than that armed Romulan had been for the sudden attack from behind.


	9. There's No Place Like Home

**Chapter 9 – There's No Place Like Home**

Mike Ayala had taken Lt. Commander Jorak's reprimand about laxness among the security personnel detailed to the transporter room very much to heart, and had taken to checking up on his team personally at regular intervals. Accordingly, he was in Transporter Room Two when he heard a sound – familiar but not quite like the one made by the regular units – and the tail end of a gurgling sound that could have been the word "… alert".

Now, Lieutenant Miguel Jesus Xavier (Mike) Ayala had spent his adolescence and early adulthood in a rough frontier colony that would later, by stroke of political fiat, find itself located smack in the middle of the Demilitarized Zone. After a childhood spent in constant struggle with a reluctant land and unwelcoming wildlife, he had served for three years with the Maquis, followed by seven in the Delta Quadrant. His ability to respond to unusual situations was an amalgam of experience and training, together with an unflappability that was near legendary among his colleagues on _Voyager_. But it had been Mike's innate fighting instincts and unfailing alacrity that, more than anything, had made Tom Paris lobby his Captain hard to offer his erstwhile crewmate the prestigious position of Deputy Security Chief on the Enterprise.

The First Officer's confidence, as it turned out, had not been misplaced. Keenly aware that due to its small size the emergency one-way transporter did not possess the pattern buffers that could be set to filter out weapons or other undesirable elements, Ayala's phaser was drawn and ready to fire even before the unusual tableau finished materializing on the transporter platform. And it took him but a split second to determine that accidentally hitting his XO with a phaser set on stun would be preferable to allowing the uniformed Romulan, who had a disruptor pointing at his midsection, to pull the trigger. Acceptable collateral damage - Paris would be the first to agree.

The Lieutenant did not waste time watching the Romulan crumple on top of an unknown human who, unlike the rest of the group, had materialized on the transporter floor. Instead he rushed to the assistance of his XO - who was doubling up and sinking onto his knees, retching fiercely and clearly immobilized - and to grab the disruptor from the Romulan. The other humans around Paris, in Ayala's professional assessment, presented no apparent threat, and so he ignored them completely.

Ayala's hit on his comm badge and his shout of "Medical Emergency, Transporter Room Two, beam in", were completed almost before either of the two security officers on duty in the room had recovered from their surprise. He glared at them darkly as he motioned them to take the stunned, unconscious Romulan into custody. "Brig," he snarled, barely masking his displeasure at their slow reaction speed, even as he put his hand on Tom Paris' shoulder.

"Sir?" he asked Tom, the single word containing several questions. "I'm okay, sort of," Tom choked out. "Bruised insides. Possible internal bleeding. Need Crusher. Toller probably has a broken jaw, the rest need to be tested for vitamin deficiencies, chronic dehydration, PTSD …" He retched again and sank on his knees, just as Dr. Crusher and two assistants arrived on the scene via site-to-site transport.

The Lieutenant hit his comm badge again. "Ayala to Bridge. Commander Paris has returned. With four humans. And one guest. Ready to leave orbit anytime."

"No!" the voice from the Commander was barely audible, but Beverly Crusher heard it as she bent over him, heard the urgency in it. "Not yet. More to find out … not done … ask Captain to stay. _Please_ …"

Beverly nodded and, despite her misgivings, passed the request on over the comm line. She also advised that the Commander had passed out, but should probably recover quickly once she got him into Sickbay. There was a noticeable hesitation on the Captain's part, then assent. "Fine. Tell the Commander when he wakes up that he has three hours to convince me to stay. No more. Starting _now._"

Ayala nodded to himself in quiet satisfaction. His job here was done, and now that the medical team had arrived he could head to the brig to make sure the stunned Romulan was secured and comfortable. The phaser blast had been mild, and he should not require medical attention. Then there would be some serious training sessions with his new staff to be set up; as far as the Lieutenant was concerned, they had failed their first real test since his arrival miserably – the way they had sauntered rather than run down the hall during the alert the week before had obviously not been an accident. They wouldn't have lasted a week in the Delta Quadrant.

Someone else – the Captain? - could welcome the disheveled-looking but harmless arrivals; eloquent speeches, Mike Ayala himself knew as well as anyone who had ever served with him, were not exactly his forte.

….

"How is he?"

"He'll be fine shortly, B'Elanna. Bruised insides, but the transporter managed not to perforate any organs when it was jammed into him. He'll be coming to in a couple of minutes."

B'Elanna Torres nodded her thanks to the CMO and bent over her mate's prone form, cupping his face with her hands as his lids fluttered open.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself," Tom whispered back, his blue eyes sinking into his wife's dark brown ones. A sight he had banished from his thoughts for the last day and-a-half, lest the memory cause him to betray the character he had – apparently not entirely successfully – attempted to slip into. He breathed in deeply, enjoying with as many of his senses as he could B'Elanna's closeness, the definitive confirmation that he was home.

Slowly, deliberately, she touched her mouth to his, smiling knowingly when his tongue started to trace the outline of her lips, seeking entrance. She pulled back remorselessly and looked over at Beverley. "Systems check out normal. He's perfectly himself again. Can I take him home now? I promised to kill him when he came back, but I think I'll need some privacy for that." She turned back to Tom, the truth of her fingers' slow, tender movement across the planes of his face belying the fierceness of her words.

"At the very least, I need to make sure he takes a shower." B'Elanna ran her finger over the bride of Tom's nose – apart from his eyes her favourite part of his face, she had once admitted in a moment of uncustomary mushiness – and gave him another kiss, deeper than the first, responding this time without holding back.

Beverly Crusher cleared her throat. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but you said there was something you wanted to tell the Captain, Tom. If you're going to have a shower before you get back to the bridge, you better leave now, and make it a quick one. Will wants to leave within three hours. One of which you spent in here."

"_Shit,_" Tom spat as he gave B'Elanna a look that was a mixture of regret and apology. He swung his long legs over the side of the biobed, wincing a little when his abdominal muscles complained of their sudden call back to duty. "Can you tell Will to stop the clock while I clean up? I don't think the environmental controls are up to compensating for this stuff I'm wearing, do you?"

Beverly suppressed a smile as she prepared to pitch his case to the Captain. It sure was good to have the XO back in his usual form, apparently none the worse for his experiences of the last thirty-six-or-so hours.

The brief visit to his quarters allowed Tom a short but soul-reviving encounter with a streak of something small in bright purple that hurled itself into the room, hands outstretched, shouting, "Daddy! Daddy! You're back!" followed by an equally hearty, "Ewww – you _stink!" _He picked up his daughter, that protest notwithstanding, and swung her around before huggingher to him with tightly closed eyes.

"Out of the mouth of babes," B'Elanna chuckled. "Libby says they couldn't keep her in the nursery when she heard you were back. She almost escaped and headed for Sickbay on her own; turns out she's figured out the door codes by watching people's fingers. They had to practically hold her down."

Tom gave Miral one last kiss. "I love you too, munchkin. And I'd like to stay, but I have to talk to the Captain. Urgently. And to the senior officers. We're not done down there." That last bit was directed more at B'Elanna than at Miral. He set the little girl down on the floor, and looked her earnestly in the eye. "Sweetheart, Mommy and Daddy have to go to work, right after I have a shower. 'Coz you're right, I need one badly. You can stay until I'm done but are you okay going back to Libby and the other kids after? If I promise a story as soon as I'm done with everything I have to do?"

Miral looked at him and nodded solemnly, and they agreed on Pooh - although Tom resisted giving in to her request for a fixed time commitment. That had been a lesson quickly learned, once he had put on that third pip, and to his surprise she seemed relatively tolerant of his all-too-frequent inability to keep his promises right away. As long as they were kept eventually.

Tom raced through a record-quick sonic shower and a cursory shave, and put on a clean uniform with undisguised relief. He paused only for a moment to remove the morning's vegetable from the pocket of his prison pants, before tossing them into the recycler. Consigning the grimy, sweat-stained and rough-textured clothing to oblivion caused him no regrets whatsoever, but the thought had crossed his mind that the ship's botanists might be interested in the small reddish tuber and its undeniable nutritional properties. He stuck it in his pocket so he could drop it off at the arboretum at some later point.

A few minutes later, after dropping Miral back off at the day care and exchanging a few words with Libby, Tom found himself striding down the corridor towards the bridge briefing room with his insides in far better shape, and feeling less … squished than they had in two days, not to mention that he felt several pounds lighter. In order to limit tissue damage, Beverley Crusher had removed the device with the fetal transporter, fixing the internal bruising at the same time. Even without any prejudice having been caused to his skin or musculature, Tom was pretty confident that he now appreciated the process of giving birth in a whole new way. Something he'd have to take into account the next time he tried to convince B'Elanna how nice it would be for Miral to have a little brother or sister...

He was still basking in the afterglow of the short but satisfying reunion with his wife and daughter, when Deanna Troi stepped onto the turbolift. "Tom, can I see you for a minute? Before we go on the bridge?" He looked at her in mild irritation. "The mission isn't finished, Deanna, and I'm fine. Right now, I need to see the Captain. Urgently. Ship's business."

Magic words, usually, which somehow failed to have any effect whatsoever on the half-Betazoid. "Computer, halt turbolift."

Tom realized that she must have practically lain in wait for him from the moment she had been informed of – or sensed - his return to the ship. He was almost beginning to regret the detour through his quarters; the delay had likely not only given her enough time to ambush him on his way to the bridge, but also to muster a strategy of attack once she had him pinned down.

He could have reactivated the lift of course, but to pull rank and ignore Deanna Troi's request for a minute of his time would have meant a deliberate affront, and as little as Tom wished to delay his return to the bridge, he could not bring himself to do that. Certainly not to a woman whom he had come to consider a friend. But he didn't have to like it, and he felt free to let his resentment show.

"Psych detox already? Don't we have, like, a week for that under the rules?"

"I really wish you wouldn't call it that, Tom. And no, that's not why …"

"Ah, I see. Trying to assess whether I'm fit to return to my post?" Friendship or not, he _was_ in a hurry, and feeling increasingly punchy about the delay. "I can assure you, _Counselor_, I've never felt sharper or more alert. Hell, I even had a snack in my quarters while I changed. So if you don't mind …"

Deanna's dark eyes flashed an unmistakable warning sign; she was in no mood to play games. Not after the last two days, and her still seething anger at the manner in which her husband and, she was convinced, Tom Paris himself had circumvented her ability to give her professional assessment of his fitness to do what he had done on Mokan.

"Don't make me pull medical rank on you now, _Commander_. Talk to me, or I _will_ declare you unfit. Understood? Five minutes in my office, that's all I ask. Since neither you nor _the Captain_ saw fit to grant me that before you left on that … venture of yours."

With a sigh of resignation and a glint of something between anger and defiance in his eyes in turn, Tom reactivated the turbolift. He allowed himself to be pushed rather than pulled into the Counselor's office on the deck below the bridge; Deanna Troi put her hand on his back and gave him a little shove, just to make sure he would come all the way in. The door whooshed shut behind them; Tom decided to make a point by leaning up against it rather than heading for one of the chairs. He crossed his arms and glared a challenge at Deanna as he waited for her to speak her piece.

"I'm sorry about this, Tom, but since neither of us has the time to mince words, let's get straight to the point: You have just been through a harrowing couple of days and I have to make sure that you are fit to make decisions without …"

"… emotional compromise? Please, Deanna, what I experienced down there _paled_ in comparison to the crap I went through in Auckland and Akritiri. Nothing I haven't dealt with before." He considered for a moment; speeding through the analysis for her seemed like a good idea if he wanted to get away and on with things.

"We discussed what's been bugging me lately. So does what is going on down there hit me where I live, and make me angry? You bet it does. The place seems to exist for the sole purpose of hiding people away from public view, and that bothers the hell out of me, because it tells me there's something I'm not seeing yet. But being pissed off and outraged doesn't mean I'm incapacitated."

Without thinking, he slapped the wall behind him with a balled fist, but stopped self-consciously when he realized what he had done and resumed his defensive posture. "Maybe they'd have gotten around to doing nasty things to me once they figured out I was a plant, but I got out before that happened. And having my ticket home right there with me helped me keep my nerves."

Tom knew instinctively that now was not the time for obfuscation, and it was unlikely that he would be leaving the office unless he gave the Counselor something other than a straight-up denial and claim that he was 'fine'. But doing so would come at a price. Tom's fingers tightened around his arms; Deanna, for her part, could have sworn that, if she made him take off his tunic, she would see finger marks.

"And … I had no real flashbacks. Some, yes, but not debilitating."

He relaxed very deliberately, dropped his arms by his side and looked at her openly, willing her to sink her empathic senses into his mind and find the truth, or as much of it as he knew and cared to reveal.

"Honestly, Deanna, I actually feel better coming out than I did going in. Less … scared." He studied his fingernails for a moment while Deanna waited to hear what he would say next; already he was giving her more insights than he realized.

"I admit that I wasn't particularly keen about this assignment. And in all truth, if you'd managed to catch me on my way out … you'd probably have put the kybosh on the idea pretty damn quick. There were times when I was … damn close to freaking out. Particularly when I heard I'd have to be strapped to that gurney."

He gave a self-deprecating snort. "I have a … a thing about being tied down or stuck in enclosed spaces, you see. Anyplace where I can't move, when I'm physically helpless, gives me the major creeps. And no, it's not claustrophobia. And yes, I got that way in Auckland."

Deanna's lips tightened in displeasure. Her husband was a smart man, especially when he needed a job done, and if it hadn't been clear to her before that Will had deliberately allowed Tom Paris to bypass her scrutiny, these comments sealed the matter. Had she been in Sickbay when Beverley prepared Tom for his mission, she might never have allowed him to leave the ship, she was certain now. They would have words again later, she and her _imzadi_.

Seeing the sudden flash of anger in her eyes, Tom raised his hand in protest. "No, don't go after Will. He did the right thing, asking me to do this. Those guys down there in Sickbay are the proof of that. Also, I know Will's been wondering about me and that … little souvenir from Auckland on my neck, and maybe he thought the mission might help get one or two of the balls off my personal chain. Not sure yet, but it may have worked. Give me time to think it through." He put both his hands on the Counselor's arms, looking deep into her eyes.

"I'm good to carry out my job, Deanna, really. And I've long since learned my lesson about admitting when I'm not, including to myself. Ask B'Elanna about her being my alarm clock some day, and tell her I said it was okay to talk about it. That was … an important moment for me. Learning to admit when I needed help. But I don't, not right now. And now I've really _got_ to go. Okay?"

She held his eyes for a while longer and nodded slowly, finding herself unable, despite her empathic senses, to tell whether his equilibrium was genuine or merely a demonstration of the iron self-control that reportedly ran in the Paris family DNA. Deanna Troi sometimes suspected that both Admiral Paris and his son were borderline empaths, untrained in reading others at the emotional level but instinctively able to shield their own feelings from prying eyes. She would have to re-read Tuvok's report about his mind meld with Tom Paris, which she had once come across in his medical file. Either way, the Counselor could find no sound professional reason to hold the First Officer back any longer.

"Fine for now, Tom. The emphasis is on the 'for now'. But you _will _come back later, when we're back in Federation space and have some time to sit down for real. _Deal_?"

Tom sighed in mock resignation and rolled his eyes for her benefit, his relief visible to Deanna as a flash of bright colour in the carefully muted, now almost grey palette of his emotions. "Fine, Counselor. _Deal_. You provide the tea. Anything but mint."

He turned serious again, all business. "But for now, the people you really need to give some attention to are the ones I brought with me. They're probably still in Sickbay; Beverley said they need a serious physical work-up, but that doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't get started on them." Deanna cocked her head with professional interest. This was the part-time medic talking to her now; his insights would be useful.

"I'd keep my calendar clear for a few days; they've been through some serious shit. Nyere and Schmidt have it together more than the others. Karsgaard will probably be looking for his teapot by now; it holds his sanity for him. Bring one to your first session. Not sure whether whatever he was … before Mokan can be coaxed back, but he's harmless, and kind. Toller … let's just say, that guy has serious issues, violent tendencies masking in verbal abuse. Keep security close in case he goes off in your direction."

Summary delivered, he turned on his heel and was out the door before she could respond or hold him back. He left, his eagerness to be gone visible to her as a bright blue swirl of colours in his wake as she followed him to the bridge.

…..

The briefing room was tense, and opinions sharply divided as the senior officers were, in turn, attempting to convince the Captain of the rightness of two widely divergent courses of action. The fact that the _Enterprise_ still remained in orbit above Mokan, and squarely in the middle of the Neutral Zone, only added to the urgency of the discussion.

"Captain, the Romulans' discovery of Commander Paris' true identity is likely to have resulted in a request for assistance. We should expect war birds to arrive in short order; the maximum travel time between here and Romulus at Warp 8 is eighteen hours. It has already been nearly three hours since his return with the officers from the _Hiroshima_ and we cannot assume that they had to come all the way from their home base, nor do we have any way of knowing when reinforcements might have been called for. By my calculation we have a maximum window of fifteen hours, but probably much less."

The impact of Jorak's dispassionate calculation was not lost on any of the other officers around the table. Tom cast a pleading look at Riker. "Of course, he's right, Captain. But as I said, I have a very strong feeling that there is more to Mokan than I was able to figure out in the, what, barely two days I was down there. There's more to the place than even the _Hiroshima_ crew was able to learn, given that they were stuck in the one place."

His mind cast about for examples, desperate to make them see the need – _his_ need – for further investigation. "Take this mythical 'Ulak Six'. Talar mentioned it to you, Captain, almost like it should be a known quantity to you as a Federation representative. But none of the humans who'd been there for ten years knew anything about it, other some vague reference to the name. I asked Nyere directly, and got nothing. "

Tom's voice took on an almost pleading tone that sounded oddly familiar to Harry – the voice he would use with Captain Janeway when she was reluctant to give in to one of his hunches. Harry recalled with a shudder how often those hunches had been proven right. _Monea_ …

"I have a feeling, a real gut feeling, that we need to go looking for it, find out what that's all about. Based on what I've already seen, it can't be good. And someone from within the Federation may be involved. Isn't our mission from Admiral Nacheyev to find out whether Federation vessels are active here?"

Tom stood up and started pacing. When he returned to his seat, he put his hands on the table instead of sitting down, looking down at his fellow officers from his considerable height.

"Besides, I doubt that a Romulan war bird would attack us here. I doubt they would risk scuppering all the progress made in relations between the Empire and the Federation since the _Scimitar_. I mean, come on - the Neutral Zone is all about sweeping stuff under a rug, not about blowing things up, or even just clearing the air. So the Romulans _should_ be more interested in finding a way to make this go away, rather than putting it under the spotlight of a battle."

He let out a deep breath and sat down, looking around expectantly for support. It came from an unexpected quarter.

"Talk about sweeping stuff under the rug," B'Elanna chimed in. "The symbol Tom saw in the prison? We ran it down on our database. It's a corporate logo, belongs to a company apparently heavily invested in military procurement for the Federation. It would be useful to find out how deeply they are involved here."

She paused for effect, looked at Harry, who nodded his confirmation even as he marveled about the sudden apparent change in her attitude. For the last two days her dark eyes had been shooting daggers at the Captain each time he was within visual range; now all of a sudden she seemed to be interested in further investigations? Go figure. But regardless of his surprise at B'Elanna's suddenly siding with Tom – what _had_ he told her in the privacy of their quarters? – Harry felt compelled to do so as well.

"The problem is, we haven't been able to determine ownership of this company. Information on both ownership and production is classified, access purely on a 'need to know' basis given the sensitivity of the kit they produce. And apparently senior staff on the Enterprise, with all our command codes and clearances, don't 'need to know'."

Harry looked around the briefing table to gauge his colleague's response, then continued. "Same thing we got when we tried to find the registered owner for the _Ares_. Exactly the same stonewall. Someone who likes to operate under a cloak of commercial secrecy, does _not _like to be found, and has the official connections to make it really, really hard."

Tom gratefully picked up the thread of his wife's and best friend's summaries. "So the big question is - does anyone in the Federation know that a company from which Starfleet apparently buys some of its more sensitive hardware is involved in also transferring technology to the Romulans? And has been active in the development of lethal force fields and the mass-replication of cloaking devices, both of which are illegal acts in Federation space? And doing all that inside the Neutral Zone where they have no business being in the first place?" He paused for effect, as much as for allowing his still-sore diaphragm to control his breathing a bit better.

"Add to that the fact that while the Romulans are finally getting to be people we hang out with occasionally, most of the stuff down there looks to have been brought here at a time when they weren't. I believe there are laws about that sort of thing – 'trading with the enemy', and all that. Right, Jorak?"

He broke off again, this time to cast a challenging look at Jorak, whose jaw was firmly set, and to provide emphasis in what was already a rather lengthier and more impassioned speech than Tom was used to giving. "And quite possibly they're also dealing with the Cardassian Union, given how many of _their_ citizens are down there. Cardassians who were brought to Mokan by a Federation-registered vessel, if you can believe what they told the _Hiroshima_ guys. Call me paranoid, but to me this whole thing smells of corruption or dirty politics at a strategically meaningful level. And the last time we lifted a rug on _that_ sort of thing, with my father's help, some rather interesting dust bunnies turned up."

Ah. Harry cast a knowing look at B'Elanna. Her revived interest in pursuing investigations was beginning to make sense. Tom sure had his buttons, but so did his wife …

Riker shook his head slowly. "I appreciate that there's a lot we don't know. But we got an amazing amount of information as it is, enough that Admiral Janeway can take it to the Romulan High Command _and_ the Cardassian Detapa Council for that diplomatic mission she is going on, and use it as a major attention grabber or even bargaining chip. I'm inclined to think that we should just take what we've got and head home."

It was Deanna Troi's turn to nod her agreement. She looked sternly at Tom, as if determined to keep him away from any more visits to the planet below. "Yes, we do have enough. Just keeping the _Hiroshima_ officers incommunicado for ten years is a violation of every humanitarian principle the Federation stands for, and if the Romulans and the Cardassians are serious about wanting to be friends, in case another Dominion shows up, they will have to come up with some pretty significant explanations. Let them try and provide those to Admiral Janeway, before we risk any more lives. Including yours, Commander. _ Again._"

Harry Kim had followed the ebb and flow of the argument for nearly an hour now; a new cycle was obviously about to start. Someone had to toss something new on the table. Maybe even some bait? The irony that he, too, would now be throwing his lot in with the man he had tried to talk out of going to Mokan a mere two days ago, and possibly causing him to do it again, was not lost on the Lieutenant.

"What about the ship that O'Reilly spotted? The one that without any doubt brought in that new-release holovid that almost got Tom killed." He was unable to suppress a small grin. While he was relieved that his best friend had come back from his most recent stint at playing the hero relatively unharmed, he couldn't help but see the humour in the role Captain Proton had played in that return. Harry tossed a smirk in Tom's direction. "Next time better make sure you bring your sidekick, oh_ Scourge of Intergalactic Evil_. Sir."

He turned professional again. "Surely that ship holds some answers, and if it's Federation, wouldn't we be within our rights to track it, stop it and ask it some cogent questions? And my guess is that it isn't far."

Tom nodded eagerly and took up Harry's thread. "I know we haven't been able to track anything through the cloak, but someone had to drop off that vid and conduct whatever business they do down there. Smart, by the way, getting Dad's goodwill by being nice to the kids – right out of the _Ferengi Rules of Acquisition_. But Harry's right, maybe the shuttle is still there? I doubt the Romulans would have told them about the prisoners escaping. Not the kind of thing a 'superior species' would share with their business partners."

O'Reilly decided to use this moment to add his two slivers of latinum worth, much to his Captain's surprise. The pilot tended to be quiet at senior staff meetings, unless the topic was astral navigation or helm control. But a certain little aerial skirmish near Andor had proven to Marc's satisfaction that Tom Paris' soul would forever have wings. And so - commanding officer or not - he now regarded his XO as a brother, and brothers stood by one another.

"The Romulans apparently are used to seeing something like the Flyer, and if one has just touched down – what's one more? We've already established that they can't tell the difference through the cloak, and have to rely on visuals. Commander Paris and I could take one of our own Flyers, maybe the one he messed up last week so you can't see the markings, fly a few sweeps, see whether we can find a trace of this other Flyer. Or its mother ship, if there is one. The Flyers have enough range, it could just have come here on its own." He looked down at his hands, a little surprised by the lengthy speech he had just delivered. Tom shot him a grateful look.

Riker clenched his jaw and stroked his beard. "I'm still not comfortable with this. The Romulans already know we have a Flyer, so I doubt they'd buy into any deception. Not anymore. They also know that we're still here, or at least close to Mokan, thanks to the Commander's rather recent beam-out. It's only been, what, three hours? And I said three hours is all we'd have."

The Captain shook his head, looking around at his senior officers, one by one, his eyes finally resting on Tom Paris. The man he had sent on what his_ imzadi_, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Engineer had unanimously characterized as a complete fool's errant, but who had come back – astonishingly – seemingly wanting to go back for more. With support now from some rather unexpected quarters.

"Part of me, quite frankly, wants to be convinced. But this smells of serious political complications, and I'd want some official backing before going on a wild goose chase with potentially wide-ranging consequences. As it stands, we've solved a ten-year-old mystery, successfully rescued four Starfleet officers everybody believed were dead, collected some extremely useful intel, and done all that under circumstances that are just about defensible under the Treaty of Algeron. But if we go on a crusade now and cause a serious incident with the Romulans, at this stage of Admiral Janeway's diplomatic talks … The potential fall-out of upsetting a rather carefully balanced apple cart could be enormous."

He let the thought trail away, knowing that everyone in the room was fully cognizant of the current status of relations with the Romulan Empire. No one would wish to be the plasma spark that would ignite a dormant inversion nebula.

Tom slapped his side with his right hand in quiet frustration, muttering something very private and very unkind about the last time he'd asked for backing from Headquarters on a matter of political delicacy. And froze for a moment, as his hand touched the small bulge in his pocket. B'Elanna's eyebrows shot up; she looked at her mate sharply, questioningly. _Now what?_

Carefully reaching into his pocket, Tom pulled out the forgotten breakfast carrot, and held it up in his outstretched palm. Something about his XO standing there staring at a small reddish vegetable, gone slightly soft with dehydration, reminded Riker absurdly of Prince Hamlet with poor Yorick's skull, contemplating the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

The look Tom gave his Captain could have been construed as bordering on triumphant insubordination, but Will knew him well enough by now to know that what he would in fact get next would be just a straightforward challenge from a mind (and a mouth) that would never in its owner's lifetime be contained by the bounds of protocol, nor made coward by conscience.

"Alright then, Captain. Talk about upsetting apple carts – I would think that, even if the Federation Council might not want to hear about it, Admiral Janeway at least would be _very _interested in just who it is that's growing fresh vegetables on a cloaked desert planet in the middle of the Neutral Zone."


	10. Whither the Dangled Carrot

**Chapter 10 – Whither the Dangled Carrot**

The three officers stared at the shrumpled, slightly pathetic-looking carrot-like root sitting on the table in the First Officer's office. The Enterprise's Chief Geologist, Dan Johansson, squinted at it through the magnifier that was covering his eyes like a visor.

"I _think_ there might be enough soil residue left on the thing for a usable sample. Your Romulan kitchen squad seems to believe in rinsing their veggies rather well, and whatever else has been in your pocket isn't exactly helping matters, sir. But you're right, if we had a comparative sample from the surface, base spectral analysis would allow us to extrapolate geological proximity and would make it easier to locate or verify the potential origin of this … whatever it is."

Tom swore softly. "Shit. The away team went through shuttle bay decontamination, and when the Captain dropped me off he came back through the transporter pattern buffers, so they're all clean. And I threw out all my prison clothing, including the flip flops. They'd have been coated in Mokan dust. LaForge's one-way gadget doesn't come with dry-cleaning."

Something occurred to him. "Wait - what about Nyere and the others?"

"Who?" the geologist asked.

Harry explained. "The _Hiroshima_ survivors Tom brought back from the surface. You telling me this ship's grapevine is _that_ slow? Or you scientists don't gossip? But you're right, Tom - maybe they haven't gotten rid of their stuff yet."

Tom hit his comm badge. "Paris to Sickbay. Are our guests still there?" Beverly Crusher's voice sounded tired, but pleased with herself. "Yes they are, and doing very well, all things considered."

"Have they thrown out their prison clothes yet?"

"What?" The CMO's puzzlement was obvious. "No, but we were just about to. They've all been given new uniforms. Their old ones are … kind of fragrant, and I don't think they're the subject of sentimental attachment."

Tom pumped his fist in quiet triumph. "Tell me something I don't know. Don't touch the stuff. We'll be right there." He nudged Harry and Johansson onward with his chin. "Let's go."

The picture that presented itself to him in Sickbay was not one Tom Paris would easily forget. He had been in such a hurry to leave earlier that he had completely neglected to check up on the officers he had brought with him; now the reality of their return, and what it might mean to them, struck him with a forceful blow.

All four of his former cell mates were there now, showered, shaved, and with fresh haircuts, their eyes in almost constant motions as they were taking in sights that were so different from the vistas they had endured for the last ten years – sights they had not expected to see again.

Arno Schmidt somehow looked at least an inch taller than he had appeared in the pod, and was determinedly chatting up Nurse Ogawa – apart from the more intimidating Doctor the first woman he had seen in a decade, wedding ring be damned. His facial expression kept changing from stunned disbelief to a grin that split his face. Nyere was fingering the brand new Starfleet uniform he had been given, shaking his head at the grey fabric – a feeling with which Tom sympathized deeply, having only rather recently experienced the same bafflement at what he still considered a wholly unnecessary change.

Toller was still stretched out on the biobed recovering from the repairs to his jaw, while Karsgaard was standing in front of the replicator and examining it with a beatific smile. Judging by the rows of cups arranged neatly in front of him, the Ensign had apparently ordered one exotic blend of tea after the other, and Beverly Crusher, just as clearly, hadn't had the heart to stop him. He turned to Tom excitedly. "They have your favourite, Earl Grey, Tom! Want some?" Tom shrugged with a smile and accepted the cup graciously, causing Karsgaard to scrunch his shoulders in a happy shiver.

At the sight of Tom Paris in uniform, Commander's pips in place, Nyere and Schmidt came to full and somewhat awkward attention. The news that their rescuer was the flagship's First Officer had barely registered in the camp, but had been confirmed by the Sickbay staff and was beginning to sink in.

Tom nodded at them, a small smile quirking the corners of his mouth. "At ease, Lieutenant, Ensign." The familiarity of the Starfleet structure had helped him overcome some of the lingering effects of Auckland and given him something to which he had anchored his recovery when he had come onboard _Voyager_; there was no reason to believe that it wouldn't help these men too. Addressing them by their rank would be a useful reaffirmation of who and what they were, he figured; eventually, it might even help coax Karsgaard back out of his shell.

"I trust Dr. Crusher is looking after you well?"

"Yes sir, thank you, sir," Nyere stammered. "I just wanted to say, thank you for getting us out and I'm so sorry …"

"For what? Punching me in the gut? Forget it. I ordered you to, remember. If you hadn't done it, none of us would be here. That was a damn fine reaction, all things considered. Commendable speed, too."

"No, I meant … for us not treating you with the proper respect, sir. Especially … Toller."

Tom looked at Nyere thoughtfully. No point stating the obvious: it wasn't as if he had brought his pips into the prison. Instead, he offered reassurance. "You did just fine with what you had to work with, Lieutenant. Just fine. Be proud of yourself. I know Starfleet will be more than proud of you."

Tom looked around, taking in Schmidt and Karsgaard with his gaze. "Of all of you."

Schmidt, who had been watching the exchange, relaxed his stance a little and walked over to Tom, hand outstretched. He pumped Tom's, when held out in turn, with vigour and sincerity. "What you did sure took guts, sir," the Ensign said simply, his eyes more full of life than Tom had seen them before, and now filling with tears. "I am sure grateful. It sure feels great to be …" he choked back the words. Tom gripped his shoulder in understanding, nodding silently as Schmidt broke into an embarrassed half grin and wiped his hand across his eyes.

Toller, who had remained motionless on the biobed, harrumphed a little, his eyes shifting as he raised himself on his side to look at Tom. "Those pips real?" he asked sourly. "Guess in that case I should probably say I'm sorry. For calling you scum, and all."

Tom gave him a long hard stare, finally sighing and shaking his head. _Screw the niceties. _"You know what, Toller? I'm not your commanding officer, and for both our sakes I hope I never will be. So since we have no official relationship, I feel perfectly free tell you that yes, you suffered horribly in the last ten years, and yes, I'm glad I helped get you out. But that doesn't mean you're not a complete and utter asshole. So you can take your so-called apology and shove it."

Schmidt grinned appreciatively and shrugged at Harry, who seemed a bit taken aback by Tom's lack of sensitivity, not to mention scandalized by his rather unprofessional language towards a subordinate. "Toller had it coming, Lieutenant. He really _is_ an asshole, your boss is right. Was before we went down. Probably born that way." He sighed. "It's sure been a long ten years."

The business of marking the survivors' return done for the time being, Tom was eager to get on with things, now that he had the Captain's consent to carry out further investigations. Six hours max, Riker had said. Enough, hopefully, to get out of the Neutral Zone before any war birds could be expected to turn up after the escape - which Talar almost certainly had reported.

Tom started firing off questions in every direction. "So, one of you guys still got your shoes? Can we have them? Beverley, can we borrow your spectrometer for a minute? We can do this here and save some time, rather than go back to the geolab, right, Dan? Harry, you still have my carrot thingy?"

Schmidt handed Johansson one of his flip flops. "Sorry about the smell," he said wryly, and Tom marveled silently just how much the man had changed in the last few hours. Alert, thinking, reacting, talking, showing emotion. Humour, surfacing again. He'd be fine, eventually. Nyere, too. The other two … He hoped Deanna would be able to work with them, although Toller was probably a lost cause, at least in the personality department. Some things even the most enlightened therapy couldn't cure.

Johansson scraped a bit of dirt from Schmidt's flip flop onto the glass plate, and placed the vegetable beside it under the instrument's lens. He manipulated a few instruments, made a few adjustments, and a split image came up on the screen in front of him. The geologist scrunched his eyes and studied it for a minute, removing some of the images from one of the screens, before breaking out in a broad smile. "Yess," he said softly, pumping his fist a little, albeit discreetly.

"What exactly are you doing?" Nyere asked curiously. He hadn't been a science officer for a decade, but Tom noted with approval that the instincts still seemed to be there, and the muscles eager to be flexed. Johansson, smelling a kindred spirit, waved him over. Tom and Harry crowded around the screen as well; even Schmidt took a peek over Harry's shoulder.

"Here, see these lines? That's the spectral analysis reading of the soil residue from the Commander's … veggie. I had to eliminate the pocket lint first, which is what I just did. Luckily that was all textile and fibre, so it was easy. Soil and sand is fascinating stuff – for example, no two beaches in the universe are the same. But if they're close to each other, multispectral remote sensor systems can establish similarity among soil types, based on major soil constituents like iron oxides, nitrates and organic matter."

The geologist was clearly in his element, with Nyere nodding excitedly at every word. "Here, these spectral lines are from the sand that came off Ensign Schmidt's shoe, which we know hasn't been anywhere but in the Mokan detention facility. The lines are very similar to the bits of leftover dirt I managed to scrape off the carrot, with some slight variations in calcium content. This suggests proximity, likely across a body of water where the conditions are essentially the same, but different currents might have deposited slightly different quantities of calcium-rich crustaceans that then got ground into sand, and eventually soil."

"Translation?" Tom asked impatiently. The last thing he needed was two science geeks comparing soil components. He needed actionable information. "Can we now use our sensors to pinpoint the exact location?"

Jansson grinned broadly. "Yep, and it's not very far from your penal institution, Commander. Just across a body of water, in my estimation. Is there one?"

"The other side of the Bay," Harry chimed in excitedly. "The Captain said something about seeing some boats when he was down there. It all makes sense."

Tom clapped him on the shoulder. "Feed Dan's data into your sensors, Harry, and give us some usable coordinates." He hit his comm badge. "Paris to O'Reilly and Ayala. Please join me in Shuttle Bay Four in ten. Mike, bring one of your better guys and equip for standard defensive posture. Lieutenant Kim will be joining us as well."

Nyere looked at him with puzzlement in his eyes. "You're going back down there? Why in all the hells would you do that?"

Tom turned to him slowly, his response measured and articulated carefully, as if to convince himself. "To find who and whatever else they're hiding."

…..

Installing one of the cloaking devices on the Flyer had taken B'Elanna, Vorik and their team less than an hour, the work having started as soon as Riker gave the go-ahead for another trip to the surface. Vorik had initially questioned the legality of the move, but after the Captain informed him in no uncertain terms that the Treaty of Algeron expressly only prohibited the _development_ of such devices by the Federation, but not their _use_ should they … happen to come across one in the field, he had given one of his Vulcan shrugs and set to work.

B'Elanna, much to Tom's relief, had expressed no reservations about this new mission. This one involved a state-of-the-art Starfleet shuttle she herself had helped design, competent team members and functioning phasers, and beyond noting privately that her mate should have taken more time to rest in between away missions she apparently did not feel entitled to give him a hard time about it. More to the point, the possibility of Federation corruption having played a role in the detention of the _Hiroshima_ survivors had fired up her own warrior spirit, and she mostly regretted that there was no immediate need for an engineer on this mission.

"Just remember you owe Miral a Pooh story," she had reminded him over their private comm line as he boarded the Flyer. "So no heroics this time, understand?"

The cloaked Flyer approached the island on which the detention facility was located from the Southern Ocean and at a low arc, with O'Reilly barely skimming the waves during the last couple of thousand kilometres. Tom noted with satisfaction that the pilot handled the control system with apparent ease; obviously he had been logging time with Henley in the sims.

Harry was operating the sensors with his usual focus. "Coming close to target," he announced. "And I think … yes, I've got something. On screen."

The Flyer's view screen resolved into a vista of blue water, ending in a small landmass beyond which more water and further land could be seen. "The Southern part of the claw," Tom remarked, recalling the primary feature of the island as it showed from orbit. "Marc, slow to 200 kph and prepare to hover."

"Aye sir," came the clipped response from the helm.

"There. You see that? Harry, talk to us."

"It looks like a settlement. Primitive, rural. Virtually no energy signatures and very little by way of metal, which is why we didn't detect it from orbit through the cloaking interference, I guess. Also," he admitted a little self-consciously, "to be quite honest, I think I kind of stopped looking when we found that prison …"

Tom shrugged. "Didn't we all. Don't fret yourself. Life signs?" They were now directly above the settlement, and O'Reilly set the controls for hover mode.

Harry's fingers danced across the console. "Approximately five thousand, sir." He looked up from his console. "Mostly human, but some … Bajoran, a few Bolians. _Bolians_? Plus livestock."

_Of course, the unreplicated-tasting cheese._

"Wait – there's something else. Very thin line, cutting off that end of the claw from the main part of the island." Harry looked straight at Tom. "Probably another one of those lethal force-field perimeter fences. It's another jail, just bigger."

Tom frowned. "Surprised they even bothered. Based on what I saw of the landscape, it presents its own form of security. Long walks are definitely out, and who knows what's swimming around in that bay."

"Besides, where would they go?" Harry asked rhetorically. "Well, I think we've found your mythical Ulak Six, Tom. Minimum security facility, it looks like. The one Talar suggested you might graduate to if you were a good boy."

"What are these?" O'Reilly pointed at a number of dark lines that criss-crossed the settlement. They were outlined in green and interspersed with wider nodes. Tom squinted at them.

"Rain basins, wells, ground water collectors and irrigation channels, I would suspect. If that's who's growing the produce for the camp, they'd need to collect water whichever way they can, preserve it and disperse it into the fields. One of the guards mentioned a rainy season."

"Why wouldn't they just pump it in from the bay?" O'Reilly wondered.

"High saline content. You need considerable machinery to turn salt water into reliable stuff that you can pour on your fields without killing everything. Doesn't look like they have that." Tom turned to the speaker, Celim, in surprise. The security officer had adopted his superior's silent mode as his professional _modus operandi_, and Tom had almost forgotten he was there. Celim shrugged. "Grew up on a farm on Talas IV. By the ocean."

"You sure there are no Romulan life signs, Harry? Or Cardassian, for that matter?"

"Nope, just humans, Bajorans and a few Bolians, and a bunch of cows. Or things like cows, that don't need as much grass to survive, I'd imagine. Basic rural settlement structure, small central square surrounded by small dwellings; based on spectral analysis they're made from the same soil as the rest of the environment."

"_Mud huts?_" Disbelief and indignation coloured O'Reilly's voice. "What the fuck … Sorry, sir. But I mean, really. This is the twenty-fourth century and they have people living in _mud huts_?"

Tom took a deep breath. The economics of efficient oppression and of warehousing the inconvenient were easy to understand, less easily explained. "Minimal cost. No external raw materials or resources required. Can be built by … the _labour force_. It's what the Cardassians did in the Bajoran displacement camps, and in all their forced labour facilities. Looks like the Romulans are quick studies."

He looked at Ayala, the former Maquis, who had been listening with his usual dispassionate attentiveness, although his eyes had flashed briefly at the mention of Cardassian labour camps. Measuring his words carefully and keeping the tone of his voice deliberately flat, Tom added, "If they're stuck behind a force-field-reinforced fence, and the Romulans put them there and are keeping them confined, I think we can assume they'll be … well-disposed towards Starfleet uniforms."

Ayala's shrug was eloquent in its diffidence. In the days of the Maquis, Starfleet would in some quarters have been greeted with only a little less enthusiasm than the Obsidian Order, both being blamed equally for the treaty that resulted in the displacement of tens of thousands of colonist. But whoever these people were, what he had learned about Mokan so far would probably make the Federation look good by comparison.

"We're beaming in?" he asked simply. Tom nodded. "That's my thinking. You Mike, me and Celim." The extra officer Ayala had brought with him, Kamil Celim, was almost as big and dark as the Lieutenant. Tom looked at his best friend apologetically. He knew that Harry would want to come with him, but it was equally clear that the mission would be better off with him in charge of any potential tactical response that might have to be given by the Flyer if the Romulans showed up. What he needed down on the ground was basic close protection – and the bigger and meaner-looking, the better.

"Harry and Marc – you'll stay here, cloaked, keep a transport lock on us ready to pull us out. Eyes open for company both here and in orbit, just in case, and on the other side of the bay. Use the opportunity to grab whatever additional data you can on that set-up, too."

Ayala nodded his confirmation and picked up his phaser rifle, motioning his subordinate to do the same. He'd go where he was told; he had his gear, he was ready. And if it was a forced labour camp he was about to enter, he'd know what to expect. He had liberated one or two before he put on the uniform he was wearing today - but he suspected his XO had known that when selecting him for this job.

Tom turned to O'Reilly and Harry. "You heard what we need from you. Any shuttle traffic will likely be coming from the North. Consider potential marine approaches. I assume the Romulans use the boats the first away team saw for their grocery runs. Oh, and please give a sitrep to the Captain, in case he has views on what we're about to do."

He paused, and gave a lop-sided grin to his best friend. "_After _we've beamed down, 'kay?"

…..

The away team materialized, backs to each other, in the centre of the largest open area Harry had mapped out in the settlement – something approximating a town square, in Tom's estimation. Ayala and Celim's phaser rifles were set to stun and ready to fire, but pointing down to the ground for now, at his express command.

_Defensive posture_, he had reminded them. _Let's assume for now that these people will be happy to see us, if a tad surprised._

The ground they were standing on was hard-packed dirt, similar to what Tom had seen inside the prison camp, but subject to the pressure of far more feet. The day's heat continued to radiate mercilessly from the yellow sand and from the similarly-coloured walls of the buildings that surrounded their current location. _Mud huts_, O'Reilly had called them, and that was indeed what they were – mud, caked over what appeared to be frames woven out of the reeds and shrubs that grew on the hills around the settlement.

Clotheslines ran between some of the buildings; many were hung with non-descript cloths that, like the walls supporting the lines, seemed to have acquired the colour of their environment. In the clothes' case, the effect was probably due to the dust blowing in on a hot evening breeze – a breeze that carried only the remotest hint of the waters of the near-by bay - and the daily bleaching effect of a merciless sun.

There were few people in the square, but they all stopped in their tracks and came to something close to frozen attention at their sudden appearance – obviously a trained, if not expressly ordered, behaviour. Tom suppressed the ridiculous urge to say something like, "We come in peace", or, "Take me to your leader".

It took the away team a few seconds to internalize the fact that many of those present in the square in what was now early evening were women and … children, of assorted ages. One of them, a tall, lithe woman with ebony skin whose innate beauty was eroded only slightly by hardship endured but not surrendered to, was the first to regain her composure, to understand that these were not the people who would usually come and present a threat. Nonetheless, she hissed something at the young boy by her side; he obediently hid behind her, allowing her to shield him with her own body against the phasers the away team had brought.

Tom looked at her in saddened recognition of a universal constant – a mother, protecting her young. "We mean no harm," he said, softly. "Your son is safe from us. We are here to help."

The woman, who was dressed in a very basic shift of indeterminate colour that had seen considerable wear, lifted her chin at that and took his measure with bright, suspicious eyes. "Then what took you so long?" she said simply, in a voice coloured by a mixture of fear, disbelief, exhaustion and rage.

At the same time, Tom heard a shout, probably from one of the other people who had remained stockstill around the square: "Thomas!" His eyes flew over to the caller, a man of indeterminate age whose left hand was twisted, as if it had been broken once and improperly set, or perhaps not at all. Did anyone here know him, to call him by name? Tom felt Celim twitching perceptibly beside him; Ayala's breath was coming a little faster.

"Steady," he hissed at his team, realizing the call had likely been to someone else. Thomas was, after all, not an uncommon name. "Until there's a threat, don't move. And do not raise your phasers."

The door to one of the larger buildings opened, and a man emerged. Tall, solidly built, but a bit stooped and almost painfully thin – the product of hard labour, merciless weather, and mental burdens Tom did not want to imagine. The man approached carefully, slowly, arms held apart from his body and fingers spread wide, in the gesture that said, '_I am no threat'_.

Unhurriedly, steadily he approached the new arrivals, as if postponing an unwanted encounter, but heading straight and unerringly for Tom. A leader, instinctively recognizing his counterpart, paying no heed to the two men with the phasers - not because he was not afraid of them or unaware of what they could do, but because he had seen so many like them. As if he knew, from long experience, that they were unimportant, relevant only if he made them so - with a wrong move, or a wrong word. And the reason he was still here, still walking, was that he knew what such a move or such a word would be, and who among those facing him would be the judge.

With the setting sun directly behind the man, surrounding him with something absurdly like a bright orange halo, Tom couldn't see his face. But as he approached, Tom was struck by the familiarity of the man's gait, his height, the way he held his shoulders – one of them pulled up a little, head slightly cocked to one side.

_Where have I seen this man …_

"You're Starfleet," the man said, simply stating a simple fact as he came to a halt before the away team – too tired to wonder, to exhausted to care. "Not C&B. What gives?"

Even the voice was familiar, although Tom had never heard that tone of angry defeat in it before.

And Tom Paris knew, even before the light permitted him to look fully into the tanned face before him, that he would find himself staring straight into the eyes of his Captain.


	11. What the Soil Will Bear

**Chapter 11 – What The Soil Will Bear**

"Commander Tom Paris, First Officer, _USS Enterprise_. And you are …?"

"The _Enterprise_, huh." The man gave a laugh as dry as the twigs that were rolling down the dirt roads leading to the square. "My dear … brother's ship. I guess he must have moved on, if you have his job? What'd he do, die a heroic death in the name of some noble Starfleet cause or other?" He cocked an eyebrow, then belatedly thought to introduce himself.

"Thomas Riker. No rank - not anymore. I gave up Starfleet a while ago, when it became just another bad habit I thought it best to break."

Mike Ayala, who upon their initial arrival had remained as stoic, silent and totally focused as ever, had inhaled sharply when he noticed the man's disturbing resemblance to their Captain. He now cleared his throat. Tom turned his head slightly towards the big Lieutenant, awaiting his whispered comment.

"Maquis, sir. Sentenced to life and sent to a Cardassian labour camp on Lazon II. Uncovered a secret fleet the Obsidian Order was setting up, without knowledge of the Union, just before we went into the Delta Quadrant. Very messy for the Cardassians, politically."

Tom nodded his acknowledgment of this information, filing for future reference the interesting fact that when it came to passing on tactically relevant information, Ayala could actually be positively eloquent.

The fact that William Riker had a brother who was in the Maquis had been the source of rumours among the crew – corroborated by a junior engineer who had served on Deep Space Nine when the man was apprehended - but it was quite another matter running into the man in person. And in the Neutral Zone, yet. Maybe the universe was shrinking, rather than expanding, after all?

But any ruminations on the laws of coincidence aside, another piece of the puzzle had just slid into place. Tom could feel it, smell it, but still no complete picture emerged.

He looked at the blue mark on the man's neck, so like his own: His conviction had come at the hands of the Federation. _Before_ he was handed to the Cardassians to serve his sentence. Just what might move a Federation official – _any_ Federation official - to agree to a prisoner transfer to that particular detention system beggared the imagination. Weren't there rules about that sort of thing?

As for the Captain himself having consistently neglected to mention his brother – well, Tom supposed wryly, every family had its black sheep. There were times when his father would have refused to acknowledge that he had a son named Thomas if asked directly, let alone volunteered information about his existence in idle conversation. _Baah, baah._

But family was family, and this man deserved to know.

"Will is the Captain of the _Enterprise_ now. Our ship is in orbit, under Romulan cloak. We may not have much time. War birds may arrive at any minute, and for all I know there'll be a local security detail coming here as well to check up on you, thanks to an escape from the main prison a few hours ago. I hope they assume we've gotten what we came for and have left orbit, but they may yet come, just to confirm that this place is … secure. We want to learn as much about your situation as we can, so we can help, if not right away, then through Starfleet. Where can we talk?"

Thomas Riker stared at Tom long and hard, looking for deception, insincerity, things he had learned over the years to find and see easily, however cleverly hidden. Finding none, the expression in his face, like the voice of the woman who had first spoken to him, ran a sudden gamut of emotions - from fatigued resignation to anger and … something else? A glimmer of hope?

"Let's talk in there," he finally said, pointing with his chin towards the hut from which he had emerged a couple of minutes ago. He turned back to Tom. "It took you so long to find this place, we figured Starfleet and the Federation knew about it all along and were just happy to ignore it. I hope you're telling the truth, because if you aren't …"

Tom understood that the trailing thought was not a threat, but rather the voice of someone who had spent far too much time contemplating the implications of his daily existence. Thomas Riker, in turn, looked at the woman whose son was fidgeting behind her back, clearly itching to get a better look at the new arrivals now that danger appeared to have passed.

"Grace, can you send Mbako home and come with us, to speak for the Fleeters?" She nodded, and whispered a few words of instruction to the child, who reluctantly headed into one of the huts, casting many backward glances at the strangers and their strange weapons.

Tom's ears had pricked up at the child's name, and Thomas Riker's casual reference. _Fleeters? _"Your son," he said softly, afraid to disturb the fabric of a sudden hope he almost dared not voice, "is called Mbako? Are you Lieutenant Nyere's wife? From the _Hiroshima_?" The woman stilled at the sound of the name, not quite holding her breath but clearly bracing herself for … something.

Tom took a couple of steps towards her, raising his hand to touch her hand. Thomas Riker moved to intervene, then stopped himself when he saw by Tom's expression that there was no threat. Grace's dark eyes lifted to sapphire ones with a mixture of fear and hope, involuntary tears starting to rise. "Yes?" she said, more a question of her own, than a response to Tom's.

"Your husband is alive and safe, on the _Enterprise_. I saw him just a few hours ago. He …" Tom's voice faltered momentarily. "He was in the prison camp on the other side of the bay. The one that you are providing with food supplies, I believe. They kept all the male officers there. Why they were singled out, I have yet to find out."

He looked at Thomas Riker as he spoke, who had stopped to listen to the exchange; Thomas nodded his affirmation at Tom's implicit query.

"But ... the escape I mentioned earlier? We got your husband and the three remaining officers out of the camp earlier today. It's why … we're in a bit of a hurry to talk to you. We do expect a reaction from Romulan headquarters; they'll know now that the _Enterprise_ may still be in the Neutral Zone."

Grace Nyere gave a little sob, and briefly looked towards the hut into which her son had disappeared - the son who had never seen his father, had been raised believing him lost. But the strength that to Tom had been evident in her bearing from the first asserted itself quickly, and she took a deep breath. She squared her shoulders and wiped her eyes with the back of a dusty hand, leaving a streak of pale dirt across her dark face. Telling her son about his father could wait; it had waited for ten years already.

"Let's go have that talk," she said.

…..

The story of the inhabitants of Ulak Six was simple, and simply told. The first to arrive were the two female officers and the non-commissioned crew of the _Hiroshima_ – including Ensign Grace Nyere. The Romulans had given them seeds and a few basic tools, indicating in their imperious manner that if they could create a functioning settlement they would be left largely alone, and in peace. Romulus had no interest in them beyond ensuring that they would not leave Mokan.

But if they ventured past the fence that cut the Southern 'claw' off from the main part of the island, or across the waters to the Northern shore, they would die.

Half a dozen of the crew had died during the first three months, before those with the ability to apply their scientific knowledge to the most primitive conditions had found a way to distill water from the bay in sufficient quantity to sustain life.

And then, suddenly, newcomers arrived. Federation colonists, ripped from their farms in the newly demilitarized zone at the point of a phaser rifle, their tools and terraforming equipment destroyed or left behind. Parents, forced to follow their frightened children onboard starships or be separated from them forever - children who had watched their homes being put to the torch. The smell of the burning flesh of those who refused to leave.

The colonies the transport ships were used to empty were not large – compared to the inconvenience their presence apparently caused to someone – and so the ships used to take them to Mokan were small as well, and apparently under private ownership. Grim-faced mercenaries, mostly human but some Cardassian, silenced questions or complaints with threats or a lifted gun, or worse. Over the next two or three years ship after ship landed on Mokan, filling the camp with a population as terrified and reluctant as they were trapped.

The best that could be said for the influx of desperate men, women and children was that at least the majority of them were experienced farmers. They knew what to do with soil, water and seeds even under the most challenging climatic conditions.

The seasonal rains that would turn the soil to mud and stand in the settlement's dirt roads for weeks, breeding diseases of the lungs and the skin, also brought with them possibilities. An absence of technology meant, though, that irrigation ditches and reservoirs had to be dug by hand, in the blazing heat; that effort killed more. But eventually, with the means to reliably water the strange Romulan seeds they had been provided, survival had become more than a remote prospect.

By the grace of whatever deity had not turned its face away, the human captain of one of the transport ships, on his second or third run, had quietly converted one of the cargo holds on his small vessel to take in some of the livestock of his human payload, in response to their pleas. He made two more trips like that, but after he completed the third, no one of his description was ever seen to run a transport again. Moving life stock did, after all, increase the weight of the payload and as such was expensive; there was no telling how much that captain's compassion might have cost his employers. Or him.

The movement of colonists into Ulak Six had stopped a few years ago though, at a time Tom quickly correlated to the outbreak of the Dominion War. By then the population of the camp had grown to some 5,000 souls, originating from at least two dozen different settlements spread across seven worlds. Most had come from the smaller planetoids of the Terikof Belt, where the Maquis used to hide during their brief attempts to stave off the Cardassian tide. The colonists assumed that Cardassian mining interests had erased from existence everything they had built, once the Belt had been cleansed of their presence.

Ayala gritted his teeth at the telling, dark eyes flashing in barely suppressed fury; these were his people, the colonies he, Chakotay and the rest of the Maquis had once sworn to protect. But he held his peace, even looked at Tom a little gratefully when the latter laid a calming hand on his arm. It had been a long time coming, this quiet understanding between the big former Maquis and the disgraced ex-Starfleet mercenary he had once considered a traitor, but it was solid now - forged in seven years of fighting side by side, even as few private words were ever exchanged between them.

The most recent arrivals had been some of the last surviving Maquis, apart from those who had been stranded with _Voyager_ - the prison camp at Lazon II had been emptied of its Maquis prisoners a few years after the massacres that had killed most of the members of the remaining active cells. Thomas Riker, despite the fact that he seemed to be the quietly acknowledged leader of the camp, had in fact been on Mokan only for something like a year-and-a-half.

By Tom's calculation, Riker and a small number of human and Bajoran prisoners from Lazon II had arrived at almost precisely the time when the Federation had declared that the Maquis were not terrorists – a few weeks after _Voyager_'s return from the Delta Quadrant. They had been sent to Mokan just as the prisons of the Federation had opened their doors, after the landmark ruling in San Francisco that had declared the treaty between the Federation and Cardassia null and void, and the actions of the Maquis a matter of lawful self-defence. He supposed the fact that they had been sent to Ulak Six rather than to join the _Hiroshima_ officers in the detention camp may have been a generous concession to their official exoneration.

Tom felt another piece of the puzzle slide into place, this time with an audible clunk.

With an apologetic smile he picked up Ayala's phaser rifle, which the Lieutenant had kept casually resting across his knees since their arrival, and drew something into the dirt floor of the hut.

The letter 'B', nestled into the curve of a larger 'C'.

"When we arrived, you thought we were something you called 'C&B'. So tell me," he asked softly, "have you ever seen this before?"

…..

"So what do they do, when they come here? This company, C&B?"

Grace shrugged. "Mostly they used to come to drop off new prisoners. 'Colonists', as they call them – the euphemism of the decade. Some of us, apart from the _Hiroshima_ crew, were colonists once, but now? But anyway, the logo was on the jump suits of the private security types who kept people in line on the transports. But there haven't been many new 'colonists' lately; Thomas' batch was the last, more than six seasons ago. They may still be dropping off to the prison, though; we wouldn't know. Now when they come into the camp, it's mostly to do maintenance on the perimeter fence that keeps us from straying too far of this beautiful, fertile farmland."

The grandiose sweep of her hand that was meant to take in the land outside the hut, and the sarcastic tone of her voice, left no doubt as to her feelings about the place where she had spent the last decade, raising a son who carried the name of a man she had believed to be dead.

Thomas chimed in. "Once, some years before I got here, they apparently dropped off some basic tools – hoes, rakes, shovels. Couple ploughs. Peasants-R-Us kind of stuff, one delivery, never repeated. The early arrivals used those shovels to dig the irrigation channels and water storage basins; we still use them in the fields. Never brought anything with working electronic parts in it though, presumably because it could be converted into transmitters, weapons, or used to switch off the security fence and find a way to get off this rock."

"The logo was also on the hull of some of the ships that dropped off people, including at least one run by Cardassians, the one I came in on," John Malivoire, another of the colonists who had joined them, added. "So they clearly ran the transports, not just the crews that operated them. Must be some sort of private fleet, belonging to that company. I keep telling Thomas and Grace that they may still be bringing people to the other side of the bay; we see ships go down there periodically. Only small ones now, the occasional shuttle. Every couple of months or so, almost like a regular run. We mostly ignore them now. Nothing to do with us."

"You may be right, John. One came in last night or very early today, I believe," Tom said grimly. "But they don't ever provide you with humanitarian goods – food, seeds, medical or hygienic supplies?"

Both Thomas and Malivoire snorted contemptuously. "You kidding?" Riker replied. "No – but once we started producing enough produce and dairy to meet our own needs, we started bartering with the Romulans. Talar's predecessor was apparently a pretty reasonable man, positively decent for a Romulan. He saw the benefits of basic trade. He could have just taken whatever they wanted, and let the people here die, but he didn't. We built up a bit of trade, got some things in return. Nothing really useful, but some new tools, rope, replicated cloth, that sort of stuff. By the time Talar got here, the system was fairly well established and lucky for us, he decided not to mess with it. Besides, I hear his kids like our carrots."

Tom had been chewing on his lower lip throughout the reports, even as he made sure his PADD was recording every word Thomas, John and Grace were telling them. Mike Ayala, who had been acquitted in the trial of Voyager's Maquis crewmembers - thanks to Admiral Paris' devastating testimony of political corruption with regard to the Demilitarized Zone - remained stone-faced but keen-eyed throughout.

It was Thomas' turn to ask a question. Nudging his chin towards the mark on Tom's neck while looking him straight in the eye, he asked bluntly, "So, _Commander_, how'd you get yours?"

Tom exchanged a brief glance with his erstwhile _Voyager_ crewmate before responding. "Flying for the Maquis," he said. "Got caught. The Lieutenant here was with the Maquis too, but he got away with it. Sort of." Ayala snorted a little at that. Seven years in the Delta Quadrant had rarely been summed up so … concisely.

Thomas took a moment to digest this, his eyes glinting in appreciation. "And they let you both into Starfleet anyway?" "Long story," Tom responded, a little wearily. "But what you should take away from this is that the Maquis … well, they're not outlawed anymore, what's left of them. Turns out that the Cardassian treaty was the product of political corruption at the Federation end, and was invalidated. Maquis action is now considered lawful self-defence against Cardassian atrocities. You'd probably be pardoned now, if you came back. Would have been, had you been in Federation custody. They should have asked for you back, in fact."

As soon as the words had left his mouth, Tom felt like something had struck him in the gut, less painfully than a Romulan disruptor but no less hard. _Kaching._ Another piece of the puzzle? If he was right, it would be a big one.

Slowly, he asked, "Say, have you ever seen two … gentlemen here, politicians and entrepreneurs, so-called – by the name of Chomyn or Burton? Or heard of them, in the context of your transport, anything?"

Chomyn and Burton. _C&B._

But both their interlocutors shook their heads 'no'. Tom expelled a long breath, masking his disappointment. The involvement of the two former Federation Councilors would have explained the existence of a private model of the Flyer, given their link to the shuttlecraft division at Utopia Planitia. Maybe they had even been involved in the development of that Obsidian Order fleet Thomas Riker had uncovered; it certainly might explain their interest in keeping him locked away.

_Shit. _It had been such a good idea. Was his own prejudice showing through? Surely Federation politicians, even corrupt ones, could not be involved in keeping thousands of humans stranded on a desert planet, or Starfleet officers in a Romulan prison …

Tom stared at Ayala without really seeing the Lieutenant. Time to probe further. "Any idea what the Romulans get out of all this? I mean, it looks like C&B dumps people who are inconvenient in dealings with the Cardassians here on Mokan, and the Cardassians are likely in on that act. But the Romulans … well, I suppose it would go too far to say they look after you at their own expense, but they are generally in charge of this place. So, what's their end of the bargain, agreeing to your … presence here? Apart from having a dumping ground for their own political prisoners, but that seems to have been almost a bit of an afterthought."

Grace shrugged. "We're mostly self-sustaining now, so the Romulans pretty well stopped caring, provided we don't run away and cause them grief. But they must have some interest in keeping that prison of theirs going, and letting C&B drop us off here to begin with."

She added, "The Romulans from across the bay now come by every week or so, usually by sea, to see if we have any produce to trade, and what we might need in return. They even give us medical supplies on occasion. Our death rate's gone down, but we have some seriously sick people here, nutritional deficiencies, unhealed broken bones, diseases we don't know anything about. And that's one thing the Romulans have never done, is send their medical personnel. What we need more than anything here is a doctor. Our CMO from the _Hiroshima _came here with me, but she died the first season."

_Damn. _Tom looked at Ayala, his earlier line of questioning having been stopped in its trajectory. "How much time we got?" "Three hours, sir, max. Including the forty-five minutes we need to get back to the ship. Are you thinking of staying? I thought we got what we came for."

"Fine. And yes, I am. We can't take these people off this bloody rock immediately, but I'm not going to just leave if there's something I can do for them right now. Besides," he shrugged, "it's something I have to do, now that I know. Blame the Doc and that oath he made me take. Really, I have no choice."

He hit his comm badge. "Harry, lock on to my coordinates and beam over with every last emergency med kit and scrap of medical supplies we have on board. And tell O'Reilly to collect every loose bit of comms equipment, laser drills, water purifiers, anything you'd want for a really long camping trip, or wish you'd had when you took Survival 101 at the Academy. Nothing that leaves a huge energy signature, though. You guys have a couple of hours to put it together and get it over here. I hope."

"You sure, Tom?" Harry Kim's skeptical voice came over the comm badge. "The time the Captain gave us for intel gathering was an outside estimate; we should really get back to the ship. War birds may be putting in appearance anytime."

Tom tightened his jaw a little. "And they may also be twelve hours out. There are people here who haven't had medical attention for almost a decade, and if we can provide it, even for a couple of hours, we owe it to them. It's a risk I'm willing to take. Please proceed. Paris out."

Harry let out an exasperated sigh that was audible over the comm, causing Thomas to raise a questioning eyebrow at Tom. "I appreciate what you want to do, Commander, but we might be better off in the long run if you left and told Starfleet about us. We'd be no worse off than we were an hour ago, and a heck of a lot better."

"One of the first people I saw when we arrived has a number of cut tendons in his wrist. I can fix that in five minutes. Are you going to tell him he'd be better off if I didn't?"

Thomas gave him a long, hard stare, then broke out into the wolfish grin Tom knew only too well – he'd seen it on his Captain often enough. "You're right. Will would tell you to be on the safe side, wouldn't he. But I'm not Will and neither, it would appear, are you."

Tom returned his stare, but not the grin. "And you don't give your brother enough credit. His idea of being on the 'safe side' is what got us down here in the first place. But let's get set up. I can't do surgery except for emergency stuff, but I can do some basic diagnostic work, bone setting, med supplements, inoculations and dermal regeneration until I run out of supplies. Help with some kind of triage would be appreciated. Children and pregnant women first." Malivoire nodded, and rose without another word. He would spread the news.

"In the meantime, I need you two to tell me, Mike and this PADD here everything else you can think of about - how this place got set up; people who have come here, how and when; people who died, and how; that sort of thing. Maybe bring someone else in who came in with the first displaced colonists. We haven't got a lot of time, so let's make every minute count and create a record that can't be denied. Celim, you work with Harry to get any supplies he sends organized at this end. Go back to the Flyer to help if necessary."

Grace Nyere looked at them thoughtfully, this Starfleet Commander and his small team, who had arrived in their midst like emissaries from a world long since forgotten. "And after you leave …?"

Tom gave her a rueful smile. "You'll have to hide your new toys where the Romulans can't find them. And you'll have to be … patient. We don't have enough time to evac you, and we might start a war with Romulus if we tried. I'm afraid we're not authorized to do that, and it would help no one. This _is_ the Neutral Zone after all …"

Fixing Grace and Thomas with a firm look, he added, "But you have my word on one thing. I have no intention of just leaving you stranded here, and once he learns of your existence down here, neither will Captain Riker. But it may take a bit of time. Someone I know, someone who's very good at this sort of thing, is about to embark on a major diplomatic mission to Romulus. Her name is Kathryn Janeway. I will brief her on the situation here myself, and you can rest assured that she will do her absolutely damnedest to get you off this rock. She is one determined woman. But … it may take a bit of time."

By the time the familiar chime of the transporter signaled the arrival of Harry Kim and several medkits, an almost orderly line had formed outside the hut, supervised by John Malivoire. Harry Kim's slightly frosty glare thawed considerably when he saw what Tom and the others had been seeing for the last hour. Maybe his friend had a point…? But still … his instincts were screaming at him to get the Flyer up and away.

Then he saw the Captain's lookalike. If Harry's studiedly disapproving demeanour had been difficult to maintain before, this sight dismantled it altogether. Tom, seeing his friend's discomfiture, pulled him aside briefly and provided the necessary explanation.

"When you get back to the Flyer, advise the Captain over the comm. He needs to know that Thomas is here. I haven't had time, for obvious reasons." Harry nodded, still slightly stunned at this unexpected development. Would the unpleasant surprises on this planet, or moon, or whatever it was, never end?

And so, over the next two hours, Tom Paris, erstwhile reluctant 'nurse' turned trained and seasoned medic, set about healing festering sores and ill-set bones and delivering hyposprays, including to counteract respiratory diseases that had vanished from Earth centuries ago.

Thomas and Grace kept up the thread of their discussion throughout, recounting the history and experiences of individual groups of colonists who had been plucked from their homes. Tom's PADD recorded everything, including his diagnostics of individual patients. _Tuberculosis. Cut tendons, unattended to. Acute anemia. Tuberculosis, again. And again._

When it came to Grace's son to receive his TB treatment, she took the time to introduce him to Tom, the man who had met his father. He paused briefly in his work, wiped the dripping sweat off his forehead.

"Your father is a very brave man, Mbako. And he's been wondering what happened to your mom … and to you, every day. I'm sorry I can't take you with me to see him, that's too dangerous right now. But you will see him soon, I promise."

When the child left, Tom looked up at Thomas Riker. "How long has it been since you last saw Will?"

The man snorted slightly. "Years. We don't have much in common. Except our DNA." Tom nodded. Probably best not to pry; there seemed to be a story there, one that was not his to hear.

Thomas hesitated, looking at his hands, callused and dry from hard physical labour. "But tell me, did your … Captain ever mention … Deanna Troi?"

"Deanna? Of course. She's our ship's Counselor. Wonderful woman, a good friend of mine and my wife's. They've been married for a couple of years now." He stopped at the man's visible, pained reaction – a palpable wince, a holding of breath. _Ouch. _More story, more things he did not know.

"Well, about bloody time he came to his senses," was all Thomas would say, as he handed Tom another refilled hypospray. But his eyes told another story altogether, one that would not be recorded on the PADD that continued to flash silently beside him.

Tom had lost all track of time when Ayala coughed discreetly. "Sir, it's been three hours. We better get going." Tom looked up and wiped the sweat out of his eyes. There were still at least two dozen would-be patients outside the hut. "Damn. Didn't realize how much time had passed. But I think you're right, Mike, thanks."

He looked over at Malivoire, who too had joined him in his work, once he had helped determine who was in greatest need of assistance. "John, I think based on the last couple of hours you're able to tell what TB looks and sounds like. At least that you can do something about now. There are about thirty shots left in this hypo; use them wisely. We're on our way."

He rose and stretched in an unsuccessful attempt to get the kinks out of his long limbs. Touching his comm badge, he called the still-cloaked Flyer. "Harry, we're ready to beam out now."

Tom waved off any attempt by Thomas Riker and Grace Nyere to express their thanks. "We'll be back," he said. "_Someone_ will be back. I give you my word."

Puzzled by the Flyer's failure to respond to his hail, he was about to hit his comm badge again just as Harry Kim's voice came on – drenched in an ill-concealed 'I told you so' tone.

"Not a moment to soon, _sir_. We just got word from the _Enterprise_. There's company in the sky."


	12. And Let Slip the Dogs of War

**Chapter 12 – ... And Let Slip the Dogs of War**

Harry glared at Tom and the two security officers as they materialized in the Flyer, covered in sweat, dust and insect bites. Despite the fact that evening had fallen, the still air had offered little relief from the heat of the day; their uniforms were evidence of the fact that even twenty-fourth century fabrics and hygiene products were no match for certain climates. Harry wrinkled his nose in olfactory disapproval. Protocol, he unilaterally decided, went out the window the moment his superior officer started to smell like the guy he played hockey with on the holodeck.

"You know, you and Seven kvetched and complained for _days_ when Chakotay delayed the Flyer's departure from that spatial anomaly and almost got you guys killed," he said a little testily as Tom passed him on the way to the tactical console. "Guess some lessons register better than others, eh."

Tom looked up at him sharply. "That delay was over a hunk of scrap metal, however much sentimental value it might have had. This was about helping out sick people, Harry - big difference, in my book."

"You have a duty to the ship, too. Just in case you forgot. _Sir._" Lieutenant and Commander stared at each other for a few seconds, Tom for once feeling tempted to pull rank and putting his best friend in his place for his insubordinate tone. But fairness told him that would not be quite right, and he let out a soft breath instead.

"Yes, fine, you made your point. Maybe I did screw up, Hippocratic oath or no. Guilty as charged. Playing the hero as usual, I was. Fine. I'm sorry, okay, and I'll do penance later. Now let's move on. Report."

O'Reilly had been following the exchange with a mix of interest and sheer awe at the Lieutenant's gall in addressing his superior officer – best friend or not. The response threw him as well: in his experience, commanding officers didn't usually admit mistakes. Probably more of that strange ex-_Voyager_ dynamic he kept hearing about. Interesting to see it in action, though.

He shifted his gaze to his XO, wordlessly seeking permission to take off. "Not quite yet, Marc. Let's get a plan together first. We're still cloaked so should be okay for the moment. Harry, that report please." The last was said with a bit of an edge; enough was enough.

"Jorak reported two de-cloaked Romulan war birds flying search patterns in the outer atmosphere. They must have figured out that the _Enterprise_ was hiding inside the grid while you were … busy down there, and are checking if we're still there. Riker figures they're showing themselves because they are just trying to flush the _Enterprise_ out, and don't intend to attack her outright. Show of force and posturing, rather than tactical maneuvers. The _Enterprise_ is playing possum - for now."

"Why don't the Romulans just take the cloaking grid offline?" O'Reilly asked, not unreasonably. "They'd spot her in five seconds."

"Yes they would, but at the price of exposing their hidden little world to public viewing," Tom replied. "And they may have their reasons for keeping the charade alive for a while longer, too, even if they know we've reported it back to Starfleet. Remember Andoria? Part of inter-planetary politics is to be able to pretend that nothing has happened, that everything is just ducky. Besides, from what I know of the Romulans, they'll need to phone home for a decision at that level. Their fleet commanders have tactical authority, but strategic command is run from home base. And the decision to cloak this world smells of political involvement, so taking the cloak down would be political as well. No, I don't think they'll do that anytime soon."

"But maybe the planet isn't run by the Empire at all," Harry remarked, as his fingers tapped numerous controls in an effort to determine whether they could locate the Romulan ships. He seemed somewhat mollified by Tom's admission of fault, and was completely focused on his task now. "Isn't their secret service sort of … independent?"

"The Tal Shiar? They lost a lot of credibility when they pretty well completely failed to twig to Praetor Shinzon and his Reman revolution. Will … the Captain said some of them even supported the guy. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if there aren't any former Tal Shiar _inside_ that little facility I just visited; one of the Ulaks is full of Romulans and the lesser Remans; the info I got was those guys were dissidents of some sort. Anyway, even if the Tal Shiar started the joint, I doubt they run it now; there's no way Talar was one of them. Guy's pure minion, not one of the Chosen."

They spent a few minutes in silence as Harry searched with his sensors, and Tom tinkered with the tactical station. "Well, I can't find any evidence of war birds from down here. The cloaking grid stops the sensors from looking past it." Harry slammed his flat hands on his console in frustration. "Now what?"

Tom had been chewing his lower lip, while O'Reilly and Celim looked at him expectantly for instructions and Harry's fingers danced across the Ops console. Ayala, in turn, had been wiping the dust off the phaser rifles to ready them for action, in case of unwelcome visitors.

"Well, they can't know for sure that the _Enterprise_ is still here. She could have just left the Flyer behind to engineer the Great Escape. So let's give them that as a starting point, and hopefully draw their attention off the _Enterprise_. Once she goes to warp, she'll be out of the Neutral Zone in a couple hours and I doubt they'll chase her into Federation space. Besides, Henley can outrun anything; she's had enough practice outflying Borg cubes and other nasty things."

The pilot and Celim stared at him in mild disbelief; Harry and Ayala, by contrast, exchanged a brief look, shrugged and nodded. They'd seen and done worse, and with a bigger ship than the highly mobile Flyer.

"You up for a spot of fancy flying, Marc?" Tom asked O'Reilly with a slightly regretful grin. Time to put his own money where his mouth had been with the Captain, and let the pilot do the job he had once considered his own by divine right. _Then again_ … "I'll do some backseat driving, if you don't mind?"

O'Reilly licked his lips in a gesture that could have been nervousness, but which Tom chose to interpret as anticipation, and nodded with grim determination. "_Yes, sir_."

"All right, take off, cloak intact for now. We still have secure comms, Har?" Harry nodded his affirmation.

"Paris to _Enterprise_. Captain, I understand certain guests arrived early and you're still under wraps. If you concur, we'll try and draw them off. We'll stay cloaked for a bit, but will surface once we're above the grid. Then we'll try and provoke them a little, hopefully make them think we're all that's left and that you're gone already. The second we know we have their full attention, you take off for Federation space. When you're at warp, we re-cloak and head out of the Neutral Zone on a different course. Do you agree?"

Tom could practically hear Riker and Jorak exchange looks on the bridge, and come to the same wordless, shrugged conclusion: that this was as good a plan as any, even if it lacked a certain … panache.

"A bit old-fashioned, Tom, but we'll give it a try."

"Captain, take it from me - old-fashioned is the new unorthodox. People have gotten so fancy with their pre-set Greek-alphabet-soup evasive maneuvers, they don't expect the basics anymore, let alone some inspired improvisation," Tom replied with a grin. "Paris out."

O'Reilly, to Tom's satisfaction – and not a little envy - managed to glide the Flyer into and through the cloaking network neatly and without incident. Harry deactivated the shuttle's own cloaking device just as it came out of the grid system. The Romulan ships were easy enough to spot, their energy signatures sufficiently strong to be readable even through the grid as the _Enterprise_ had found.

The shuttle emerged from its cloak right behind one of the two massive war birds; they were flying almost sight-by-side, one slightly behind the other, in a position that Tom recognized as more of a 'watch-me-watch-you' pose than an attack formation. Nonetheless, at the emergence of the Flyer behind them, the two ships broke formation immediately and wheeled around.

"Paris to Enterprise, we have their attention - _go."_

"Acknowledged. See you on the other side. We'll send coordinates for the rendezvous point. Good luck, Flyer One."

_Time to play. "_Harry, open hailing frequencies to the Romulans. Let's have some fun. No screen. I don't want them to see the inside of this cabin."

Tom schooled his voice into something like Voyager's EMH at his most superciliously indignant, almost eliciting a giggle from his best friend. "Romulan war birds, this is the Starfleet shuttle Flyer One, Commander Tom Paris speaking. I wish to register my supreme displeasure at the fact that the Romulan Empire has been holding four Starfleet officers hostage. I have taken them safely aboard my shuttle, but I do demand an explanation. What have you to say for yourselves?"

He motioned to O'Reilly to go to maximum impulse; no point going to warp until the Enterprise had. At least his claim to have the escaped prisoners onboard the shuttle could be 'verified' on some level, if the Romulans checked the number of human life signs aboard.

A Romulan voice came over the comm system. "Your presence here is in violation of the Treaty of Algeron. Prepare to be boarded, or else destroyed."

"Oh, I don't think so. First of all, you're not supposed to be here yourselves. But more importantly, if you destroy this shuttle, my Dad will be very angry with you. He's a Very Important Man in Starfleet and will make your life a living hell. Trust me on this." Harry snorted, and O'Reilly gave a slightly scandalized look over his shoulder.

Tom gave the throat-cutting gesture to mute the comms system, and said to Ayala, "Mike, vent some plasma, nice big cloud to gum up their impulse drive for a couple seconds. Marc, loop up and get behind them, then head off at a hundred-and-twenty degrees."

When the cloud had been released, he motioned Harry to reopen the comm link, audio only. "Sorry about that. But you should really rethink the diet you feed your prisoners down there. Indigestion is a terrible thing."

An increasingly annoyed voice responded. "Starfleet vessel, you have ten seconds to …" a hissed exchange in what Tom recognized as very colloquial Romulan followed, before the comm cut out.

"I think they spotted the Enterprise. Marc, get in front of them. _Now._"

For the next two or three minutes, Lieutenant Marc O'Reilly, at the direction of his XO who was standing behind him, gripping the back of the pilot's seat, managed to dance the Flyer through evasive maneuvers he had only recently carried out in sims on the holodeck, and none of which came with a Greek letter attached. He darted in and around the Romulan ships, which appeared to be under instructions not to fire their disruptors; an ostensible peace was apparently still good for something, and only phaser fire was directed at the Flyer.

But just as clearly, the Romulans had little compunction to ram the shuttle in order to get it out of their way, in their pursuit of what they must now know to be the bigger prize - even if they may not as yet to be sure what they would do with the _Enterprise_ should they catch again, there was no telling when the Romulans' orders might change.

One of the two war birds peeled off, but the turn cost it valuable seconds – enough time, Tom hoped, to enable the _Enterprise_ to establish a stable warp field. He might have been able to go to warp in the Flyer within close proximity to a space station and another space ship, but a Galaxy class vessel required considerably more maneuvering room before it could safely do so. The Flyer's job was to provide that space.

"Commander. They're charging their main weapons arrays."

_Shit. Sooner than expected._

"Do not return fire. We're not here to start a war, even if they're losing patience. Harry, set shield phasing to oscillate between theta and omicron bands; Picard believes that works to deflect disruptors, so let's give it a try. Evasive maneuvers … oh hell, Marc, just get out of the way in whatever manner you see fit. Show them what the Flyer can do in the hands of a pro."

Finally, the word came from the _Enterprise_. "War bird's on our tail and charging up, but we're ready to go to warp. Thank you, Flyer. On my mark …" The Captain cut the comm as the ship winked out of regular space.

Tom nodded in response to O'Reilly's questioning look, and the Flyer looped over the remaining war bird, making as if to attack its rear but then banking off, taking advantage of its greater maneuverability to disappear behind the cloaked moon. "_Now."_ Five more seconds at maximum impulse, and the screen showed the spatial distortions signaling the jump to warp speed.

Tom clapped O'Reilly on the shoulder. "Nice flying, Marc. Set course for our rendezvous point."

…..

The Flyer had been at warp for nearly an hour when Harry Kim looked up from his console. "Tom … Commander? There's another warp signature just ahead of us. Headed for Federation space, like we are, but on a slightly different trajectory."

"Not the _Enterprise _then?"

"No, definitely not. Smaller." Harry made a few adjustments to his instruments, and whistled softly. "It's a Flyer-model shuttle. Not a Starfleet signature though." He looked up from his console, straight at Tom. "We may have found the infamous _Ares_, on her way home. Wherever that is."

Tom cursed under his breath. "Lifesigns?"

"Five. Two human, three Cardassian." It was Ayala's turn to make an editorial comment, which he did by way of a contemptuous grunt.

O'Reilly turned around from the conn. "I can extrapolate their course and match it, sir. I assume we'd like to know where they're going and follow them?"

Tom nodded. "Yes, absolutely, for now. Harry, can you give us a subspace link to the _Enterprise_? Since I find myself, as Counselor Troi would probably put it, 'emotionally invested' in certain issues, I want to phone home for a quick judgment check and, hopefully, some authorization codes."

The link established, Tom cleared his throat. "Paris to _Enterprise_. Captain, we believe we may have located the _Ares_, on its return to Federation space. Request permission to interdict and question those aboard." Harry's eyes flew up at the request, and Ayala stilled at the tactical console.

On the bridge of the _Enterprise_, Riker's eyes widened, and he exchanged glances with Jorak at Tactical. The mysterious ship was within reach? This was almost too good to be true. Harry Kim had reported on the situation the away team had found in the settlement camp across the bay while he and O'Reilly had waited for their return. Even without the full debrief, the Captain was convinced that there were things that clearly warranted further investigation, in particular the by now very clear evidence of complicity from within the Federation. This ship might just carry the answers.

He stared thoughtfully at the screen. But interdiction?

"Don't we need something like a suspicion of contraband aboard to stop a private vessel in peace time?" He looked to Jorak for confirmation; the man was a walking manual on the rules of permissible interspace interception and the use of force. Jorak nodded, but his brow furrowed in concentration. Riker could practically see a list of potential regulations scrolling down behind his retinas.

Tom had clearly given the matter some thought already. "How about 'hot pursuit following suspected participation in criminal activity'? Things like unlawful confinement, forcible displacement of a civilian population, war crimes, crimes against humanity should qualify, no? Jorak?"

"In Federation space, we would require direct evidence of involvement, Commander, not a mere suspicion, to justify application of the hot pursuit paradigm. In other words, you would have to have witnessed the vessel in question committing a crime. But based on your present coordinates I believe you are still in the Neutral Zone?"

A quick verification by O'Reilly, and a nod from the conn. "Yes, that's correct, Jorak. Then again, so are they – and isn't just _being_ in the Neutral Zone without justification an offence?"

"Yes, indeed, Commander, it is." Jorak turned to Riker. "It should also be noted, Captain, that matters such as interdiction and arrest, or any action taken during arrest, are not subject to Federation jurisdiction until the Flyer crosses back into Federation space."

_Legal carte blanche? _ Tom Paris draw a sharp breath at that, carefully suppressing an anticipatory grin that would have bordered on the feral, had he allowed it to spread across his face.

The Captain, for his part, muttered something unintelligible as the images and reports of the last two days dripped into his mind like fuel onto a carefully banked fire.

Razor wire and force fields, made by an unknown company in the Federation. The desiccated shells of four Starfleet officers, what remained of the senior staff of the _USS Hiroshima_, now quartered below and awaiting treatment by the ship's counselor for the mental devastation wrought by a decade spent in hell. Nearly five thousand people, ripped from their homes and dumped on an inhospitable world, exposed to hunger and disease, for reasons he could almost grasp but needed more information about before being certain.

Will Riker could only imagine what his Number One saw at this moment – the man who had been behind the wire and inside the mud huts of the displacement camp, and who had touched the despair, the hopelessness and the rage of those left on Mokan to rot far more intimately than he could fathom.

Then there was his … alter ego, Thomas Riker. His genetic twin, inadvertently created by a transporter accident on Nervala IV, nearly eighteen years ago now. Hearing from Harry Kim that Thomas - whom he had thought to be in a Cardassian labour camp and hence, he assumed, beyond the reach of the parole the other ex-Maquis members had been granted - was on Mokan had shaken Will to the core.

Thomas Riker was … what? What Will Rikerwould have – _had?_ – become, after spending eight years on his own in a prison of isolation and loneliness, before rejoining 'civilization' only to witness the atrocities against civilians in the demilitarized zone? After seeing that illegal fleet being constructed by the Cardassians, intended to wreak yet more Obsidian horrors on colonists trapped between their love for their homes and the politics of corruption and expediency?

Will could not count the number of times he had quietly asked himself whether that conviction, seemingly so right at the time - especially after Thomas had impersonated _him_ to achieve his goals – had been proper and lawful, in retrospect. Given what had since been learned about the background of the treaty between the Cardassian Union and the Federation Council, how could he possibly maintain the all-too-easy condemnation of his … twin that had protected him for eight long years from examining certain questions too closely?

Were he and Thomas not two sides of the same coin, shaped by differing circumstances? One face, seen twice – one bathed in the gleaming lights of a starship's bridge, the other in shadow, as if reflected in the shards of a universe fractured by dark and unforgiving forces?

And if that was so, what did William owe Thomas, if not discovery of the truth, in whatever way possible? Answers – early answers, obtained well before official inquiries, diplomatic representations, reprobations, denials and negotiations could reasonably be expected to yield but a carefully filtered version of the truth?

His eyes locked into the dark and understanding ones of his mate beside him. Deanna Troi nodded only once, almost imperceptibly. She had felt his turmoil over the last two hours, when word of Thomas' presence had spread; lived her own. She had made a choice of her own, long ago now, but there were debts to be paid to the past. Two words whispered in Will's mind, both confirmation and declaration of support: _Yes, Imzadi._

Captain William Thomas Riker came to a decision then, and to hell with what should be. Whoever was pulling the strings in this game had chosen the Neutral Zone as their stage; let them live with the consequences of that choice.

"Flyer One, you are authorized to carry out pursuit, interdiction and questioning of potential suspects. You are further authorized to use such force as may be necessary and appropriate to the circumstances in order to carry out this task. Field command authorization Riker Lambda Three-Four-Seven."

On the Flyer, Tom Paris let out a slow breath and clenched his fist slightly, his nails digging into his palm as he did so. He had gotten his code.

"Acknowledged and understood. We'll report back as soon as we have something to say. In the meantime, O'Reilly will transmit the contents of a PADD with witness testimony I recorded on Mokan. Just in case. Paris out."

On the bridge of the Enterprise, Will Riker had seen that small, triumphant gesture of his First Officer's, as well as the predatory grin spreading on Lieutenant Mike Ayala's face in the background, and Harry Kim's slow and thoughtful nod. He sank back into his chair, let out a slow breath and stroked his beard, silently wondering what he had just unleashed.

…..

"So here's the plan. I was thinking of mixing up the crews a little, with the help of your talent at warp transport, Harry – we grab the three Cardassians and stick them behind a nice solid, soundproof force field on the Flyer. Then Marc and Celim can essentially ignore them while they fly back to the ship. At the same time, you and Mike and I beam over to the _Ares_. We'll fly her to the rendezvous point, hoping to have a nice and polite chat with the human passengers in the meantime."

Harry swallowed down the comment he really wanted to make, and said simply, "You're nuts, you know that. We have no idea who these people are, how well they're armed… I mean the Cardassians will be relatively easy; we won't let weapons through the transport and stick them behind a force field, as you say. But for all we know, we're beaming into a nest of rabid, well-armed serial killers on that ship."

"Yeah," Tom admitted. "I probably am nuts, and based on what I've seen, 'serial killers' is probably not too far off. But at least this isn't a Borg cube. I mean, there are degrees of insanity when it comes to this sort of thing, and on the Janeway scale of tactical initiatives this one barely registers."

Harry rolled his eyes, pursed his lips for a bit. "Fine, I'm in. I have to say, I'd like to know what's going on as badly as you do." _And I finally get to play,_ he wanted to add, but didn't.

Tom clapped his best friend on the shoulder. "I knew you wouldn't let me down, Buster."

It did not take Harry Kim long to configure the Flyer's transporter to something he called the 'Montgomery Scott equation' – a set-up that would permit simultaneous multiple transports, to and from two separate targets moving at warp.

Kamil Celim and Mike Ayala both had their weapons at the ready, the one for incoming 'guests', the other for whatever they might face on the ship that may or may not be the mysterious_ Ares_. The Flyer's aft section was cut off by a Level 10 force field to hold the three Cardassians.

Phaser in hand, Tom nodded to O'Reilly to initiate transport.


	13. The Quality of Mercy

A/N: Some readers may find parts of this Chapter disturbing.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 13 – The Quality of Mercy<strong>

The sight that presented itself to the three officers as they materialized on the _Ares _was stunning in its sheer banality. The immediate impression given by the shuttle's interior was that of a comfortable corporate home-away-from-home, a state-of-the-art conveyance fully equipped to permit its high-flying owners to keep on top of their business interests in a relaxed, club-style atmosphere.

The shuttle's walls and many of its normally gleaming metal surfaces had been covered in what looked like genuine wood paneling; the aft areas were carpeted in a pleasant shade of dark green, likely decreed suitably 'masculine' by a highly-paid interior designer. Holographic pictures of its two human occupants shaking hands with numerous recognizable personalities from a number of worlds, including the President of the Federation, decorated the walls. Through the open hatch leading into the aft cabin could be seen a posh seating arrangement in dark leather; it did not require a great deal of imagination to picture the comfortable sleeping cabins that likely replaced the regular bunks.

One of the wooden panels in the rear of the cockpit sported a beautifully carved corporate symbol: the letter 'B' nestled within a larger 'C', the word "Inc." discreetly tucked underneath.

Slightly revolted by the opulence before him, Tom briefly wondered whether as the ship's designer he could lodge a formal complaint against this utter perversion of his artistic vision, but the shuttle's two remaining occupants claimed his attention instead. They were sitting underneath the corporate logo, in the space normally occupied by the tactical console, which had been converted into an office area. One, a man in his late sixties with a shock of white hair, had evidently been half-dozing over a PADD in a comfortable lounger - complete with footrest and drink holder - that was most definitely not Starfleet issue. The other, balding and displaying the body of someone whose enjoyment of the good life did not include an appreciation for exercise, was working at a mahogany-clad computer station.

At the sound of the transporter's tingling, both looked up in surprise. "Dolak?' the balding man asked, looking to the suddenly empty conn and ops console, and an empty lounge chair on the opposite wall. His eyes widened in something that should have been fear, but came rather closer to irritation at the disruption of his routine and comfort; the reaction of someone supremely confident that no harm could possibly befall him.

Tom motioned to Harry to take the conn. First rule of space flight: _never leave the helm unattended_. Kathryn Janeway had once told him that it had been his own instinctive response after _Voyager_ had been hurled into the Delta Quadrant, when he had pulled himself out of the rubble past the dead pilot to reach for the controls, which had convinced her that he had retained his officer's mettle despite everything that had gone before.

"Set course for our rendezvous point, Harry, Warp six point five," he said. The Lieutenant nodded his acknowledgment and started entering the new coordinates.

Ayala needed no instruction. Standing comfortably and relaxed in combat-ready position, legs slightly spread, he pointed his phaser squarely at the two men, from a position where he had both in his sights with minimal movement of the muzzle. His face, as usual, betrayed no emotion. When he was satisfied that his XO's phaser was also trained on the subjects of his professional interest, he proceeded to pat them down, not gently, before hauling the white-haired man out of his chair, pushing him unceremoniously into the corner where the other had been working.

A few practiced commands later, a semi-circular force field cut the two men off from the rest of the cockpit; it was evident that this feature of their cozy ship came as a surprise to both of them. If this ship had been involved in any prisoner transports they had likely not been present onboard; more likely, previous visits to Mokan had been carried out by somewhat less well-appointed sister vessels of the _Ares._

Throughout the takeover of their shuttle, the two men's sputtering protests and imperious demands for explanations had met nothing but silence from the three officers. Finally, content that their captives were secured and the course set, Tom spoke.

"Gentlemen," he intoned coolly, "I am Commander Tom Paris, First Officer of the USS _Enterprise_. Your vessel is being interdicted and taken into custody by Starfleet under suspicion of a serious violation of interplanetary movement protocol, namely unlawful incursion into the Neutral Zone. Feel free to explain yourselves at any time." _Better stick with the obvious and unquestionable for now, _Tom figured. _We'll get to the rest._

The white-haired man, who had flinched just a little at hearing Tom's name, mustered what ire he could. "What is the meaning of this? Do you have _any idea_ to whom you are speaking, young man?"

Tom gave him a sharp look, and nodded once. _Oh yes. The final piece of the puzzle._

"Indeed I do, although I wish I didn't. Harry, Mike - meet former Federation Councilors Noam Chomyn and James Burton. The driving forces behind the Cardassian Treaty, owners of Utopia Planitia's shuttlecraft division and, so it would appear, C&B Incorporated in the flesh."

He had recognized them instantly, from the holovids that were practically looped on the news channels at the time of the Maquis trial: The two former Councilors who had been forced to resign their office, when their critical and decisive support for the Cardassian peace treaty had been revealed as motivated solely by corruption and personal business interests. The result of the discovery of this conflict of interest, the invalidation of the Federation's recognition of the treaty as binding law, had led to the finding that colonists in the DMZ had acted lawfully in the defence of their homes, and the review and, in most cases, dismissal of any related charges against members of the Maquis.

He turned back to their two captives, at least some of whose puzzlement seemed genuine. "Perhaps Commander Talar, despite the lovely hostess gift you brought for his son, neglected to enlighten you about what transpired while you were on Mokan. That's the problem with entering into alliances with the paranoid and secretive: they don't tell you stuff you may actually need to know. Suffice it to say, your business dealings in the Neutral Zone have been pretty comprehensively de-cloaked."

There was a momentary silence in the _Ares'_ cabin. Tom was painfully aware that he was not an experienced interrogator; what training he had received during his time at the Kirk Centre had focused on resistance and self-preservation should students themselves become the subjects of questioning. While some of what he had learned might be of assistance in a circuitous way, he knew this would be strictly amateur hour. He also hoped rather fervently that Jorak was right concerning the non-applicability of Federation procedure out here; a wrong step could be prejudicial down the line. With all that in mind, Tom figured that if he was going to get anything out of his captives, he would have to use some of the things they had found out already to allow them to think he knew it all.

"C&B. Interesting company you are heading. Military procurement, based on how hard it is to find out anything about it. But from what I 've seen, you also specialize in technology that's illegal in the Federation, and sell it to a Government with which trade in everything except humanitarian supplies has been unlawful for centuries. You really do have interesting friends, gentlemen – first Cardassia, now Romulus. Wide open, unexplored markets for sure, but what's next? Selling spare parts to the Borg? Blotting paper to the Dominion? And to top it off, you're coming from a place where no private Federation citizen has any business being. Things do not look good, gentlemen, so kindly refrain from trying to rely on your importance to impress me."

It had not escaped Tom's notice that following his introduction of the two Councilors, and for the first time since he learned of Tuvok's 'betrayal' of Chakotay's Maquis cell, Mike Ayala's usually stoic face had started to show something close to undisguised fury. The big Lieutenant's hand moved to his phaser.

"Easy, Mike," Tom whispered, to the man whose family had been forced off their hard-won homestead to make way for the Cardassian interests these men had espoused, men who had been instrumental in ensuring that any defence of the colonies would be considered a criminal act. Ayala squared his shoulders and nodded slowly, but his fingers kept strumming his phaser like a musical instrument.

"So," Tom said conversationally, noticing with slightly malicious satisfaction that Chomyn, chairless now, was uncomfortably shifting his balance on his feet, "I gotta say, I'm surprised to find you here personally. I thought people like you would use minions for your dirty work."

"We have no need to explain our presence to a Starfleet _Commander_," Burton huffed indignantly, making sure to inject an appropriate level of contempt for Tom's lowly position on the ladder of political relevance into his statement. "Your presumptuousness will be brought to the attention of the Admiralty and, I trust, dealt with appropriately."

Tom eyed him coldly in turn. "You know what? I don't really give a shit what you think … _Councilor_," he grated, mimicking the man's contemptuous inflection so pitch-perfectly that Harry couldn't suppress a smirk. "So feel free to keep your mouth shut until we figure out what to do with you."

He motioned Ayala to take Ops, and himself took the chair formerly occupied by Chomyn. Harry cast him a puzzled look, and asked in a low voice, "You're not going to question them?"

Tom shrugged, and responded in an equally low tone. "They're politicians. They hate being ignored - best way to get them to talk, and I've planted the seed for the topics I'd like to hear about. Not sure whether I can formally question them anyway without prejudicing a prosecution. So let's see what happens when they start talking. In the meantime I'll do some homework."

He punched a few commands into the computer attached to his chair, and asked the computer for information relating to an individual named _Dolak_. That was the name Burton had called out earlier, when his Cardassian cabin mates had disappeared off the shuttle. _Dolak is a common name in Cardassia. Please narrow search parameters, _the computer's voice advised briskly. A few select additional key words later, and Tom nodded with satisfaction at the display on his screen.

Making no effort now to keep his voice down, in fact pitching it carefully to be audible throughout the cabin, he summarized the findings for his two fellow officers. "I think I found him, the guy we evaporated off this ship. _Gul_ Dolak. Former bigwig with the Cardassian High Command, went into private enterprise some years before the Dominion War, around the time of the Treaty with the Federation. Excellent contacts in both military establishment and industry; involved in transport, construction and duranium mining on certain planets within the demilitarized zone, including in the Terikof belt."

He whistled, as he scanned another document. "_Shit. _One of the hits I got off the database is to my father's testimony from the Maquis trial. Guy has had close business connection to you-know-who, and for quite some time." He pointed his chin towards their captives.

"Since the Dominion War, Gul Dolak's been doing – _wait for it_ – military procurement for the new Cardassian government, sourcing unspecified goods and services, apparently from both Romulus and the Federation. The former has not been reliably confirmed." He slammed his hand on his thigh.

"My guess would be that these guys went to Mokan to show their Cardassian partner some of their samples, fully operationalized in the field. At a guess, that would be the cloaking net. As any Ferengi trader will tell you, there's nothing like personal engagement to make large-scale deals work, and these guys would make Grand Nagus Zek bow his head in shame. Or admiration."

Tom was in the process of saving the information he had found onto a PADD, when an imperious voice was heard from the aft section. "Officer. There is only one chair here. Councilor Chomyn requires a chair."

Tom exchanged looks with Ayala, before getting up and walking leisurely to the back of the cabin where Burton was still seated in his swivel chair. Chomyn was trying to find a perch on the desk, which was just that much too high to accommodate his centre of gravity. Clearly, Burton's expressed concern for his colleague's discomfort did not extend to letting him have a turn on his own chair.

Tom took in the scene without a trace of amusement.

"The men of the _Hiroshima_ had no chairs in their hut," he stated flatly. "The only time inmates get to sit on something like a chair is when they are forced into one of the Romulan punishment cells, which I am told are about five by five feet in diameter, made of metal. They get left out in the sun for however long the Commander sees fit. The _Hiroshima's _pilot died this way. The former colonists your company's ships dumped on Mokan sit, eat and sleep on woven mats on the dirt floor. In the rainy season, that dirt turns to mud, a perfect breeding ground for tuberculosis. All the children in the camp and most of the adults have it. So imagine my sympathy for your plight. Sit on the fucking floor for all I care. At least it's dry, and we have climate control." He turned on his heel and stalked away.

"I will have you know, we saved those people's lives," Chomyn sputtered at Tom's retreating back, no longer able to keep quiet. "A Romulan envoy asked me and Councilor Burton to resolve the potentially explosive – _explosive! -_political problem caused by the _Hiroshima_'s unlawful entry into the Neutral Zone. We convinced the Romulans to be merciful. The senior officers were sequestered in a purpose-built detention facility, simply to avoid escape attempts that would surely have caused the Romulans to kill everyone. This was for everyone's protection, including their own. The crew members less likely to prejudice the arrangement were given arable land on which to settle; this included the women officers, who of course require extra consideration. And we ensured that everyone was comfortable and well-cared for."

While Harry found himself briefly distracted by the thought whether Chomyn had ever met Kathryn Janeway, or any other female Starfleet officer of his acquaintance, Tom turned back and fixed the man with a stare hot enough to trigger a dilithium reaction. Nonetheless, he managed to keep his voice soft, infused with but a hint of menace. He was getting information now – and he hadn't asked for it. All admissions just made had been completely voluntary. Now if he could only keep hold of his rising temper …

"By 2370, the year the _Hiroshima_ was lost, the Romulans had already suffered heavy losses at the hand of the Borg. Surely there was room for negotiation."

Chomyn's silence spoke volumes and Tom Paris, who had always been as good at reading other people's emotions as he was at concealing his own, was beginning to see a truth emerging on the other man's face.

"The Romulans may have been posturing, but you would have seen through that in no time. You're a politician and a war profiteer; you sell lies for a living, for crying out loud. It figures you'd recognize one from ten parsecs away." Tom was pacing up and down now before the force field, his thoughts gathering speed as the strategic picture formed in his mind.

"I suppose the … overly zealous actions of the Romulan commanders who seized the _Hiroshima_ forced the Empire into a difficult situation: They could either let the crew go and show themselves as weak to the Federation, or they could destroy the ship and kill the crew, ruining any chance of rapprochement in the face of the greater Borg threat. I would guess the Romulans were over a barrel, and wanted the _Hiroshima_ incident to go away quietly."

Ayala and Harry exchanged glances in the front part of the cabin. Tom's exegesis of the political situation at the beginning of the decade made considerable sense. But he wasn't done. It was all so clear now.

"And you saw an opportunity to strike a deal, which really had very little to do with the _Hiroshima_. Because you were having problems of your own by then, problems that _you_ wanted to make go away, didn't you? Those colonists who got in the way of your business dealings with the Cardassians, whom you had told you could get rid of them. Promises that you couldn't keep, despite all the might of the Federation Council behind you and that blasted treaty. You must have thought you'd died and gone to heaven: you would allow the Romulans to disappear the _Hiroshima _crew, and in exchange they would give _you_ a place to stash problematic colonists. And you were able to pat yourself on the back for your humanitarian approach to resolving two problems for the price of one."

Ayala was starting to stir in his seat again. The big former Maquis rarely lost his temper, but his dark eyes were beginning to spray fire. His hand was twitching over his phaser again.

Burton chimed in, eager now to defend his record. "We saved the crew's lives, and made the Romulans give us the strongest possible assurances that the _Hiroshima_'_s_ officers would be treated humanely. We even provided climate control technology for the officers in the POW facility, specially made by my company at considerable expense, as well as showers and on-site beverage facilities. None of this is standard equipment in Romulan detention camps, let me assure you, and not things our company ordinarily produces. The equipment was purpose-created, at considerable expense, to ensure, as Councilor Chomyn said, that everyone was comfortable and well-cared for."

Tom shook his head as if in disbelief. "_Comfortable_?" he spat. "_Well-cared for? _Nice catch phrase, that. Do you seriously believe that giving Janne Karsgaard a teapot on which to focus his narrowing world makes up for the mind he lost, thanks to your idea of what's good for business, or what constitutes comfort? Or that the CMO who died of malnutrition and dehydration in Ulak Six felt the warmth of your idea of 'special consideration' for female officers?"

Ayala, unable to hold back, snarled in turn, "And that giving those colonists hand rakes and shovels made up for the homes and terra-forming equipment you forced them to leave behind?"

Burton was indignant. "You Starfleet types just don't see the wider picture, do you? Our actions saved Federation lives. The Cardassians would have killed the colonists as surely as the Romulans would have the _Hiroshima_ crew, and might have reignited the war with the Federation, causing more loss of life, including Starfleet lives. Moving those people to Mokan was an appropriate and effective solution that ensured ongoing peace."

Tom's voice dripped with sarcasm now. "Congratulations. You just admitted that you knew your precious Treaty was basically worthless as a means to stop the Cardassians from massacring people. And those trapped on Mokan were the price that would keep it alive for you - except it wasn't you who paid it."

Harry couldn't remain quiet anymore. If this wasn't a formal questioning, he felt perfectly entitled to join the discussion. "And what about the Cardassians that are down there? How many of the Guls did you offer to take off the hands of the new Government, to get the reconstruction contracts you wanted for C&B? And how many Cardassian civilians who got in the way of _that _work also ended up here? Whom did you save there? And just where will your … _humanitarian impulses_ stop?"

He had done his own analysis based on what he had heard, and it followed Tom's closely. "I suppose you also paid the Romulans well in exchange for taking the Guls off the hands of the Union – bit like a business tax, keeping your Cardassian clients happy, I suppose. Even with Cardassian ideas of what constitutes a trial, their stories would no doubt have been … inconvenient for the new government. But what was it you gave the Romulans in exchange for helping you stash them on Mokan – holo-technology? Those lethal force fields? The ability to create the cloaking net, with Federation replicator technology? Where else are they using those nets now, I wonder? And of course they also got to use the facility for their own purposes, as a bonus. What a great, three-way deal. You must be so proud."

Chomyn, sensing the increasing level of hostility in the cabin, turned to Tom Paris. Despite his colleague's earlier contempt for Tom's rank, it was clear that this was the senior officer onboard, and therefore the man to be dealt with.

And he knew just how to deal with someone like him.

"Commander Paris," he said imperiously, "I demand that you leave this ship and return its crew immediately. If you fail to do so, I will personally see to it that you face a court martial, or worse. Based on what I recall of your personal history and what I see on your neck, you already have a rather intimate acquaintance with the consequences of unlawful actions."

Tom froze momentarily, his head slightly cocked, as if he were listening to the sounds of distant, whispered voices, a symphony of silent screams.

"Oh yes," he said softly. "I am indeed _very _familiar with the consequences of unlawful action. Others I know of are, as well." He stared at Burton evenly, eyes narrowing, his jaw grinding silently as he fought a rising flood of rage.

"You want a list? Captain Patel. Commander Kal. Lieutenants Gorman and Massoud. The four most senior officers of the USS _Hiroshima_. They faced _the consequences of unlawful action, _one and all_. _How did you put it? You 'saved their lives'?So that they could, respectively, be executed, tortured to death and blown up by those same Romulans you 'saved' them from. Or take Ensign Karsgaard and his beloved teapot, the centre of his universe. That man used to run the operations station of a Nova class starship, for Kahless' sake. I bet he feels like he's been saved. If he feels anything anymore at all."

Harry Kim's eyes narrowed at that. The _Hiroshima_'s ops officer. Ten years on Mokan. He'd had three days in an Akritiri prison. _There but for the grace of god_ …

"Lieutenant Nyere and his wife, who each lived for ten years believing the other was dead; the son who still has never yet seen his father. Thomas Riker and that small handful of remaining Maquis, who should have been released with those in Federation custody, but who were sent to Mokan so they couldn't embarrass you, or the Cardassians who'd been holding them with stories about illegal mobilization. All of them have faced the _consequences of unlawful action. _I guess we just have a different concept of what that actually means."

Tom started pacing in front of the force field now, his hand caressing his phaser as Harry and Ayala watched and listened in silence. Chomyn opened his mouth as if to speak, but was stilled by Burton who mutely pointed his chin at the weapon. In certain circumstances, even he, it appeared, could appreciate the need for circumspection.

Tom stared at the two former councilors evenly. "Then there's that 'comfortable' little colony you paid the Romulans to establish. Mike already mentioned them. I suppose you expect the people there to be grateful you didn't just have them killed – real big-hearted that was of you. Five thousand of them, trapped behind a curtain of death in an inhospitable climate, who've had to scrabble for their water supplies by hand, and died in their dozens doing so. More _consequences of unlawful action_. The real irony is, the Romulans showed them more compassion than you did, letting them keep their livestock and starting a bit of trade."

He drew a deep breath - or was it a shallow one, deeply felt? – as Burton drew himself out of his chair and, in a haughty tone intended to cover a nervousness that was belied by a tic on his temple, announced, "You understand nothing of the politics of war and peace, young man. But of course that can only be expected from someone who disgraced his family and the uniform he wore – someone who was convicted for the crimes he committed in a court of law. By rights, you should still be in jail. Auckland, was it?"

Harry shot a look at Tom at this. And froze at what he saw on his best friend's face. He had learned to read him pretty well over the last eight or so years, and was used to seeing him utterly impassive in the face of serious challenges; the only time Harry had ever seen his friend's demeanour reflect his inner turmoil was when B'Elanna was in danger, and even then he had mostly succeeded in keeping his professional poise.

Only once had Harry seen Tom Paris utterly undone: In Akritiri, asking – no, _begging_ - not to be left to the other inmates, as he lay gravely wounded. And now.

When Harry Kim was twelve years old, his parents had taken him to Iceland for a holiday. There, atop a living, shifting Earth he had seen things he had never before imagined, among them a volcano located beneath a glacier, hundreds of meters beneath layers of ice that were finally starting to regrow after the warming of the industrial age. In its long history, he had been told, whenever this volcano would erupt, the fire would take days to burn through the glacier. But when it finally did, the ice it had melted on its way to the surface had built into a lake, which would be unleashed in a force so powerful that it would in a day cut canyons that it would take ordinary erosion thousands of years. The sand flats between the glaciated volcano and the sea were strewn with boulders the size of starships, tossed there by that force in successive eruptions.

This image was what came unbidden to Harry's mind as he looked at Tom Paris just then. His friend's normally pleasant facial features were frozen in an impassive mask, as they often were in times of conflict or stress, but his eyes were lit now by a liquid fury, a barely banked fire.

"Oh, we're getting personal now, are we Counselor?" Tom spoke almost conversationally, although Harry detected in his voice a small cracking sound, like slowly breaking ice.

"I can do personal, if you want. In fact, I can do it rather well. So let me just ask you this: Have you ever been raped?"

Harry Kim sucked in a hissing breath as he felt all colour drain from his face. His eyes briefly flashed over to Mike Ayala, whose fingers had stopped their strumming of his phaser. Mouth open slightly, the big ex-Maquis stared at his XO and erstwhile _Voyager _crewmate, first in shock, then something very like … acknowledgement, as Ayala finally understood the full extent of the price the presumed mercenary had paid in the name of his people's cause. The big former Maquis made a quiet vow then, acknowledging a debt he would some day repay.

Tom continued, oblivious to his crewmates' reaction. "You're awfully quiet, Councilors. I take it that's a 'no', then? So let me put you in the picture as to what it can be like. First, you get arrested and tried for helping people defend against atrocities that you can only begin to imagine. Then you get thrown in jail, where thanks to your so-called _privileged background_ some of the other inmates – real criminals, who actually deserve to be there - feel entitled to subject you to each and every kind of humiliation the psychopathic mind is capable of, culminating in throwing you in a closet, tying you down and … taking their turns with you. Again, and again, and again. Night after night."

Tom's voice broke, turned into a rasp. The fire behind his eyes had finally broken through the icy mask, and hot tears were streaming down his face. He seemed neither to notice, nor care.

"Some people claim that rape is worse for men than for women. Personally I doubt that. There are … certain things that are simply beyond comparison. But you could always ask the colonists in the DMZ, who ran into your Cardassian friends before they died, male or female alike. Rape is a favourite weapon of war in those parts, and the snakes don't discriminate." He took a deep breath, steadied his voice, but still made no move to stem the tears of rage that were now flowing freely.

"But there are other forms of rape. Ask those who were driven off their planets and were sent back to the Federation or, if they were really unlucky, to Mokan, the place where you just went on your little business recce. Take Thomas Riker, who exposed a conspiracy and was handed over to the conspirators for his troubles. Take Janne Karsgaard's mind. Nevermind – you did. My own experience just happens to be a particularly personal, physical one."

Tom's hand had stopped caressing the phaser, pulled it out of its holster, lifted it slowly, in a gesture almost without conscious thought. "So tell me again, of my _intimate acquaintance with the_ _consequences of unlawful action_, Councilor Burton. Or instead, talk to me of the oath you took as elected officials of the Federation, to uphold the rule of law and protect the rights of all sentient beings under its jurisdiction. And then do give me one reason_, just one_, why I shouldn't fire this thing at you this very moment and flush your bodies out of this shuttle that _I _designed, and that _you_ have been using to carry out your unholy business_. _A shuttle you so very aptly named after the God of War at whose feet you worship and make your money."

Harry had nearly forgotten to breathe while Ayala was observing the scene before him in grim silence, his own phaser still in its holster but ready, so ready to be drawn. Both seemed mesmerized by the weapon Tom now held pointed at their two captives, unwavering and true.

Then, suddenly, a sob. Whether it came from Burton or Chomyn, it was difficult to tell and really did not matter. "Lieutenant, or you, helmsman – _do something_! This … this man … Paris – he's a criminal. A crazed lunatic! He'll kill us both! _Stop him!_"

Ayala and Harry looked at each other, through the gibbering panic that followed the councilor's shrieked plea. Ayala shrugged, his face a study in calculated indifference. "We're in the Neutral Zone," he said simply. "So who the hell cares." And turned his back.

Harry swallowed in the face of the stunning truths revealed over the last three days, the last few minutes. The suffering these men had inflicted on thousands in the name of profit and the politics of convenience and the pain they had caused – by way of collateral damage, without a single thought spared - to his best friend.

Jorak's voice, his clipped tone, rang in Harry Kim's ears: _Matters such as interdiction and arrest, or any action taken during arrest, are not subject to Federation jurisdiction._

"Not my call to make," he said tonelessly. "Outside the rules, and beyond my pay grade." He, too, turned his back, gritting his teeth, his eyes focused on the view screen, as his mind tried to grasp the reasons behind his inability to reach his own decision.

"Well, I guess that's it then, gentlemen. Now you know what it feels like to have no choices open to you. Your money, your position, none of it will help you out here." Tom chuckled without humour, the click of his phaser audible as he changed the setting with a flick of his thumb. His eyes narrowed as the thoughts that had clearly been racing through his mind reached a sudden conclusion.

"As my colleague said, this is the Neutral Zone. The place where anything goes: Arbitrary detention. Kidnapping. Forcible displacement. Murder. Torture. Rape. This place really is quite the perfect set-up for sweeping things under the rug – from Starfleet officers and Federation settlers to Romulan dissidents, Reman secessionists, Cardassian war criminals and ordinary civilians just trying to make their world a better place. Because the politics are so _complicated_ and the decisions are made at such a _high level_ that no one comes out here to look, and no one's law governs. Well, gentlemen, I've looked. I've had a really good look, and this is what I found. You, and the despicable, festering corruption that is your business."

And with those words, Tom Paris, tears of rage still streaming down his face in a flood held back far too long, lifted his phaser and fired.


	14. The Winds That Would Blow

**Chapter 14 – The Winds That Would Blow**

Tom watched with restrained satisfaction as the "C&B" logo, artfully carved into the genuine wood paneling over the heads of the near frantic former councilors, blossomed into a blackened, smoking ruin. The stain left by the blast of his phaser continued to spread a little as the heat dispersed further through the wood; an entirely different stain was now spreading in front of Councilor Chomyn's trousers. The man's legs were shaking as he sank to the floor, his back against the desk, the request for a chair forgotten. Burton, too, pressed himself deep into his chair, white as a sheet, his fingers holding the arm rest in an iron grip. Neither seemed able or willing to speak anymore, nor did they look at one another.

Tom sucked back a sobbing breath and wiped the sleeve of his uniform across his eyes before fixing their two captives with a slightly regretful glare. "This is your lucky day, gentlemen. Consider yourselves under provisional arrest. I'll leave it to the Sector Attorney to figure out the charges after they've gotten my deposition, and the evidence we gathered on Mokan. But I would highly recommend that for the rest of the trip, you keep your mouths shut. First, so that you don't incriminate yourselves further, and second, because I can't guarantee that I won't point that phaser a little lower the next time."

He turned his back on them and walked into the front of the cabin to rejoin his fellow officers, pausing briefly to see his face reflected in the glass of one of the photographic images on the cabin wall. He shook his head and touched the mark on his neck. "Shit," he muttered to himself, looking into blue eyes that were rimmed with red but looked more tired than angry now, "that was a close call," and turned away.

More loudly, he added, "Harry, how much longer before we reach our rendezvous point with the _Enterprise_?"

Harry, still stunned by what had just transpired and trying to assess his own response to it, stared sightlessly at his instruments for a few seconds before being able to muster a response. "Approximately two hours," he said.

"Good," Tom replied. "Because I think I really need to do some flying right now. Get this crap out of my system. You mind if I take the helm?"

"No, no – of course not. She's all yours, Tom." Glad to be able to speak of normal, uncontroversial things, Harry added, "The port nacelle's response time is a bit sluggish. Whoever's been handling this shuttle doesn't know what they're doing, and they've been overcompensating for the normal vacillations in the gravimetric field." He got up and headed for the ops console, sparing only a cursory glance for the two men behind the force field as he did so.

Mike Ayala gave Tom one of his inscrutable looks as the Commander passed him on his way to the conn. Tom cracked his knuckles, sighed ostentatiously over a couple of minor personal modifications the Cardassian pilot had made to the console, and adjusted the seat for his own height. When everything was to his satisfaction and the _Ares_' course towards the rendezvous point confirmed, he turned around in his seat.

"Disappointed I didn't just vaporize them, Mike?" he asked, looking the big Lieutenant in the eyes. His voice was curiously flat, as if he had just stepped off a shuttle that had been caught in a tailspin without the inertial dampeners being on, and was doing all he could to keep his insides from spilling out.

The ex-Maquis shrugged, then nodded slowly. "Yeah," he said. "Kind of. I'd have done it. If you'd asked me to. Or just left it to me."

"Believe me, I'd have _liked _to," Tom said huskily, before shaking his head. "Been dreaming about it for years, in fact - even before I knew who these guys were, or that people like them existed. Just had that fantasy of getting at somebody, _anybody_ responsible for some of the shit that happened to me in Auckland. Exorcising demons, I always thought, _had_ to come with a blast of some kind."

He unselfconsciously wiped his eyes again. When he spoke, it was almost as if he was addressing himself, not his fellow officers.

"But you know what? I finally get these guys in my sights - the embodiment of everything I went through at Auckland and been chewing on ever since. Not to mention the last few days, when the stuff I saw and heard on Mokan brought it all back. And they are smug, righteous and completely oblivious to what they've done to people all over this Quadrant. And all I have to do is pull the trigger, and my fantasies come true. Plus I'd score one for the crew of the _Hiroshima_, for all those people on Mokan, you, B'Elanna, Chakotay and the rest of the Maquis. Thomas Riker, whose transfer to the Cardassians they probably okayed personally. My Dad, and how and why he ended his career."

The cabin was completely silent as both Ayala and Harry watched Tom Paris, who was usually as loquacious as he was reluctant to share his feelings, struggle to give voice to his innermost thoughts. His tear-stained face was wide open, even vulnerable now, a range of emotions playing across it as he fought to come to terms with what he had just done. What he had _not_ done.

"And suddenly, I get this great big epiphany, telling me that if I pull the trigger I'll be just like them, deciding over people's lives like _that," _he snapped his fingers,_ "_just because it gives _me_ something I want. And make no mistake, blasting them out of the airlock would have given me considerable satisfaction. But I suppose if I want to be on the high horse about truth and justice, I gotta let _them_ have a crack at it to. Them, the Guls, everybody. Not just people _I_ think deserve it."

He sighed deeply, his eyes far away. "My lawyer gave me this play to read after we came back from the Delta Quadrant, after my sentence review, about Sir Thomas More. We'd had this discussion about when it should be okay to ignore the rules, you see. In it, this weaselly guy, whose name I forget, says he'd happily cut down all the laws of England, just to get at the Devil. And More says - I can't remember the whole thing, but it's something like, 'And when the last law was down, do you think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?'"

Shrugging, Tom turned his eyes back to the console, but his attention remained elsewhere as his voice gained confidence. "I suppose that's the problem with genuine, meaningful principles - you can't just ditch them when they're inconvenient, or when people would prefer fireworks. And mine, as I found out, include not condemning people without a proper hearing. Guess that's happened to me a few too many times to seem like a viable idea. So yeah, I'm with Thomas More. I'd give the Devil the benefit of the law. Even if I'd much rather give him a shot in the head."

He sighed. "So there it is, guys – no Neutral Zone for Thomas Eugene Paris, no matter how convenient or tempting. But I'll be able to look in the mirror tonight, and look my daughter in the eyes. I'm sorry, Mike. I suppose some people will say that makes me an idiot, or soft in the head."

Harry let out a long breath. "No," he said. "It doesn't. What it does, is make you a Starfleet officer." He hesitated for a moment, then got up, walked over to the conn and gripped Tom's shoulders with both hands. "Hey, I'm proud of you, man."

Tom patted one of Harry's hands with his own in grateful acknowledgement before turning to look at him. "Yeah, thanks, but what happened to you back there, Harry? You're supposed to be my conscience, remember? Keep the Black Sheep on the straight and narrow?" He spoke in a low voice now; this was only for the ears of his best friend. His half smile was devoid of its usual ironic touch.

"I think you did just fine there on your own," Harry replied equally softly. "It wasn't you that I turned my back on. I've been trying to figure out what went through my head there, and I think what I realized was that this was _your_ moment, not mine. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure what I'd have done if I'd been you. I'm glad I wasn't, in a great, great many ways. But you needed to find your way, and no one could make that choice for you. And I guess I knew whatever you'd do, would be the right thing."

Tom nodded in acknowledgement, his ears echoing with words spoken and heard long ago: _I don't need anybody to pick my friends for me. _A trust that he'd always quietly wondered whether he deserved; maybe he did. It always came down to choices.

Still, he hesitated for a moment. "And … and what I said …? About what happened … in Auckland?" He looked at Harry, the open question written across his face now, an element of uncertainty, even fear in his eyes. There were some things …

Harry shook his head slowly, gripping his friends shoulders more tightly. "Changes nothing, Tom. I just wish you'd told me before," he said simply. "Some things you shouldn't carry by yourself. And I'm here to talk anytime you want … or need."

He held his breath for a while, before continuing, his voice barely audible now. "We never really talked about Akritiri either, you know. I'm still chewing on some stuff over that one, too, that maybe I should air out and have a look at."

Tom's smile reached his eyes for the first time. "No, we never really did talk about that, did we. Thanks, Har. We will. Soon. That's a promise."

He turned his attention back to the helm. "And now let's get the hell out of here and home to our ship."

"Yeah," Harry said. "All I want to do right now is close the door to my quarters, put my head on Libby's stomach and tell Baby Tommy that as of today, there are two fewer monsters running free in this world."

One last pat on Tom's shoulders, and Harry headed back to the Ops station. Tom looked after him, stunned, as the words he had just heard sank in.

"Baby Tommy?"

Harry grinned at him broadly now. "Oh, didn't we tell you? That godfather thing means you have to share your name. Libby and I figure Thomas is a pretty good one. Goes with guys who aren't afraid to ask questions, and who come up with some pretty good, if not always convenient, answers."

He looked down at his console to check their current coordinates. One glance, and he whistled his relief.

"And on that note, I'm happy to report that we have left the Neutral Zone."

…..

The _Ares_ docked in Shuttle Bay Eight a mere half hour after O'Reilly had brought in the Flyer. Tom reflected briefly on the _Enterprise'_s ability to keep a shuttle bay empty for unforeseen circumstances; on _Voyager_, one or more bays were always empty because someone – usually Chakotay - had _already_ had a run-in with … unforeseen circumstances.

He hit his comm badge. "Paris to Jorak."

"Jorak here, Commander."

"We have two additional inmates for the brig. One of them will need new pants and a shower before he goes in. How are accommodations holding out? If things are getting crowded down there, suggest we confine our Romulan guest to quarters; he was just doing his job. And I'm not sure whether the Cardassians broke any of their own laws. The two we just brought in, though, are a priority for formal confinement."

"Understood, sir. Arrangements will be made. Jorak out."

Tom turned to Ayala. "It's been a long day, Mike. I'll go brief the Captain; you're relieved. And … thanks, for everything you did today. And I mean, _everything_. Starting with the transporter room."

He flashed the big security officer a small, secretive smile, and his voice took on a conspiratorial tone. "But before you turn in, could you have someone check whether we have access to _Voyager's_ data files from here? I'm thinking we might want to program one of the replicators with some of Neelix' highly nutritious leola root recipes … While they're with us, I'd like our guests to have that full Starfleet brig experience I remember so well."

Ayala fixed his First Officer with a studiedly impassive stare. "I'll see to it, sir. And – thank _you."_

With that, the big Lieutenant turned on his heel to issue instructions to the two security officers, who had arrived in the Shuttle Bay with something almost approaching commendable speed.

Tom looked at Harry, who had witnessed the exchange and failed to suppress a snort. "What?" he asked innocently.

"You don't ever change, do you, Tom?" Harry said, shaking his head. "Good. Don't. _Commander, sir_._"_

…..

The faces of the two admirals on the small view screen in the Captain's ready room were a study in their respective personalities. Fleet Admiral Alynna Nacheyev fixed Riker and his First Officer with her usual cool, slightly aloof stare, although the tightness around her mouth betrayed her reaction to their report. Nacheyev had been walking the tightrope of interplanetary politics for a sufficiently long time to be more than familiar with the politics of expediency and appeasement, but what had transpired on Mokan concerned the lives of Starfleet officers, and as such was personal.

Admiral Kathryn Janeway, on the other hand, was focused almost entirely on her former helmsman, her face a mixture of pride and concern. "Thank you, Tom," she said simply. "I believe I have a good idea of what this mission cost you, personally. You can be assured though that I'll do my best to make sure it was worth it."

She sat back in her chair. "Your findings certainly give a completely different colouration to my mission. I was supposed to go to Cardassia first, but now it seems I'll be starting with Romulus. I leave right after the memorial service for the deceased officers and crewmembers of the _Hiroshima_."

"I concur," Nacheyev said. "Our first priority must be the remaining crew of the _Hiroshima_ and the displaced colonists." She looked towards Riker. "And your … brother, Captain. I have asked the JAG to confirm that the general pardon issued to the Maquis does include him as well; a declaration to that effect has been prepared that will void the transfer agreement with the Cardassians."

"I should have thought their passing him over to the Romulans without so much as a by-your-leave would have done that automatically," Tom muttered darkly.

Janeway cast him a look somewhere between amusement and warning. _Don't squander the good will you've just earned with smart remarks, Tom Paris,_ her mild scowl advised unequivocally, even as his jaw seemed ready to set in that stubborn defiance she knew only too well.

Then it occurred to her – the best way to pre-empt the newly-minted Commander's tendency to let his mouth run away with him was just to let him have his say. Especially since she had long since learned, to her initial surprise, that his seemingly off-the-cuff views often provided a much-needed straightforward perspective, at times when people got hung up on side issues or lost sight of the bigger picture.

With a sideways glance at the Fleet Admiral, she asked him, "Do you have any suggestions for me, Tom? Things you think I should put on the negotiating table?"

Riker lifted an eyebrow, and given the glare he had just gotten from his former Captain, Tom hesitated briefly. Nacheyev made the decision for him, her razor-sharp mind easily recalling that the last time this particular officer had been let off the protocol leash, Starfleet had regained its strategic foothold in Andoria. She gave him an encouraging nod.

"Well," Tom said, "I've been thinking. My guess is that the remaining survivors of the _Hiroshima_ and the Cardassians in Ulak Three, like Pokat and the others who helped Gorman and Captain Patel, they'll be wanting to go home, as soon as possible. And I can't see the Romulans objecting to that. Now that the camp's existence is known, they'll be keen to clear out all the people that aren't theirs, take the technology they got in exchange, and call it a day. The stakes are too high for them to do otherwise, and given Chomyn and Burton's involvement they can easily claim that they believed they were acting with Federation consent. I'd encourage that thinking."

"That sounds right, based on my experience with the Romulans," Riker chimed in. "For them, it'll be all about saving face. Give them a plausible out, and they'll deal."

"But you only mentioned the _Hiroshima _crew, Tom." Janeway pursued. "What's your sense of the others, the displaced colonists? You're the only one here who has met them, talked with them. Do you have any reason to think they might feel differently?"

Tom chewed his lower lip for a minute, then fixed his eyes squarely on his Captain as he responded. "The others – they're colonists, as you said. They made what they could out of a rotten situation, and survived, because that's what they do. I can't see them wanting to stay on Mokan, but I also, frankly, can't see them wanting to rush back into the welcoming arms of the Federation, let alone Cardassian space."

There was a catch in his voice when he went on. "For people like them, people like Thomas Riker, there've been too many … betrayals. Just … too many."

"So what would you suggest, Commander?" Nacheyev asked crisply. She saw the merits in the point he was making and once that box had been ticked in her mind, she was keen to move on to suggestions that could be operationalized.

Tom took a deep breath. "I think we should convince the Romulans to let them stay in the Neutral Zone. Not on Mokan, but someplace more suited to actual colonization. Like Nadoo IV. It's uninhabited, but it's supposed to have a great climate, lots of vegetation that suggests fertile soil. The only reason it hasn't been colonized yet is its location, and my guess is the Romulans didn't use it for their little joint venture with C&B and the Cardassians because they ultimately had other plans for it."

He grinned a little insouciantly, remembering Princess Lissan of Andoria and how close he had come to visiting the place himself. "Not to mention, it seems to be enjoying a budding tourism industry. Allows for early economic diversification, and all that." He turned serious again.

"Basically, the idea would be to turn the Neutral Zone into something other than a place that's just an … an_ absence_ of things – a place where anything can be shoved under a rug, from politics and armed conflict to human rights and basic decency. We should turn it into a beginning, which seems to be something that the Romulans should want too. A place that's truly neutral, for both them and the Federation, but open to both- for trade, for settlement …"

His voice took on a slightly uncertain tone when he noticed the silence that had met his comments. "Well, anyway, I think that might be worth a try, and with proper equipment and support a settlement there would probably work. Some of the other displaced colonists from the DMZ, the ones that came back to the Federation, might also want to go to such a place and maybe the Romulan dissidents could be given a place there, although that's probably hopelessly naïve. And your brother, Captain – he'd be the perfect man to lead a new colony."

Nacheyev nodded slowly, even as Janeway's face broke into a broad smile. "I think this is worth developing as a serious proposal," the Fleet Admiral said, her tone as impassive as ever. "Your views, Admiral Janeway?"

_Voyager_'s former Captain said. "It would also fit with the Captain's comment about allowing the Romulans to save face and the sense of moving forward. In negotiations, psychology is everything. Even the Borg Queen understood _that_. And if we are looking at ways to dissolve the Neutral Zone in its current incarnation, this seems like an excellent approach. Nobody gives up anything, and nobody gains an advantage. I like it, Tom. I like it a lot."

Nacheyev nodded her agreement. While the top-ranking officer in Starfleet was not ordinarily in the habit of developing political strategy with a committee of subordinates, she found herself caught up in the spirit of the moment; Janeway and Paris as a team, she found to her own bemusement, were difficult to resist.

With that, the Ice Queen decided to pitch in. "And the Guls – it's up to the Cardassian government to deal with their crimes. Inconvenient and ugly as the truth may be, the Cardassians do need to come to terms with what happened under military rule. And this is a good opportunity to make them look. They have just come back with a big resource ask for their restoration efforts – tying that to the development of the rule of law on Cardassia would be a worthwhile price. Maybe we can even introduce them to the concept of the presumption of innocence."

Riker asked softly, "And what about the Romulan dissidents? And the Remans?"

Janeway's eyes hardened against a truth she did not like to contemplate, let alone voice. "I'm less confident that the Romulans will allow us to go there, Will. Just like they cannot be expected to return any of the technology they got as their part of the bargain with Burton and Chomyn."

Tom closed his eyes briefly, the memory of an insect-loud night shattered by a scream echoing in his ears. "Should we not at least ask them to stop torturing people? Even if the Romulans ignore the request, we _owe_ it to those inmates to ask. Don't we, Cap … Admiral?"

Nacheyev and Janeway exchanged glances. Any progress with the Romulan Empire had to date been incremental, a gradual breaking of hundreds of years of mutual suspicion and fear. Janeway knew that discussions on the treatment given to the Remans would, if anything, be a bargaining chip, likely to be dropped off the table relatively early on.

But it would be raised; they owed Riker and Paris that much. And who knew what the result might be? Perhaps not now, but down the road?

"I'll try, Tom, I'll try. But I can't promise success."

Tom shifted uncomfortably in his seat, seemingly ready to say more on the topic, but Riker gripped his arm lightly to stop him from arguing further. "That's all we ask," he said softly. "That you try."

"Anything else, Captain, Commander?" Nacheyev asked, ready to end a conversation that had already gone well over the one-hour maximum that she was wont to allot to any one issue.

"Yes," Tom said, ignoring his former Captain's demonstrative wince. "If you have the chance to discuss charges with the Sector Attorney, do mention tax evasion. I'm sure these guys didn't declare whatever direct or indirect benefits they derived from their transactions with the Romulans."

"Tax evasion?" Riker asked incredulously.

"Yes," Tom replied firmly. "Ask Admiral Picard. He's an expert in 20th century crime, and he said that's how they got one of the major kingpins in Chicago. He mentioned it once, in a session on holodeck malfunctions."

Nacheyev nodded curtly. It made sense; it would be done. She reached for the disconnect pad. But Tom wasn't satisfied, not yet. "One more thing, while we have you both here." Janeway cocked an eyebrow at that, and Riker suppressed a snort, halfway between amusement and exasperation.

"How fast can we establish formal contact with Ulak Six on Mokan? I mean, Federation citizens in Romulan custody or at least under Romulan control – doesn't the Treaty of Algeron have something to say about our ability to provide assistance?"

This time, Nacheyev actually broke into a genuine smile, one that touched her eyes as she exchanged glances with Janeway. "Rest assured, Commander, the necessary steps were set into motion at the first preliminary report from the _Enterprise, _while you were still in the Neutral Zone … entertaining the good councilors. We called in the Romulan ambassador and filed a formal protest, together with a request to deliver humanitarian assistance to the colonists on an urgent basis. I'm happy to advise the request was granted just a few hours ago, in an exchange of diplomatic notes that also settled the return of the guard you … inadvertently brought with you. The Romulans, it appears, are interested in cooperating, at least as their opening posture."

Tom finally allowed a small smile to curl his lips at that, the best news yet. Thomas Riker would know soon that his visitors had kept their word to him – even if no one else ever had.

…..

**Epilogue**

_Seven Days Later_

Through the observation window in the Captain's ready room Earth was rising, a shining blue diamond underneath one of the duranium arches of McKinley station. The ostensible reason for the ship's unscheduled return to Earth had been the handover of two indignant, if somewhat subdued, captives and the return of the Hiroshima survivors to their families, as well as extended investigations and depositions with the Sector Attorney's office for some of its senior officers and the formal, physical handing over of the PADD with the witness statements from Mokan.

As a positive side benefit, and at the express recommendation of Counselor Deanna Troi, the layover also afforded the crew a couple of days of welcome respite from a tense few weeks.

Tom entered the ready room in civilian clothing – jeans and a tight-fitting black T-shirt - a sign that his shore leave had started, at least in his own mind. Riker himself was still in uniform and reading a report on a PADD, but his jacket was open and his feet were up on his desk; he did not bother to take them down when he saw who his visitor was.

"Hey Tom," he said with a welcoming grin. "I thought you'd beamed down already. Isn't your father waiting for you?"

"He is, but he can wait a little longer. Last time I was gone on mission he waited seven years, so an extra couple of hours won't kill him. Besides, B'Elanna and Miral have already gone down, and with his only granddaughter to fuss over he wont even miss me."

As Tom crossed the room, Riker eyed his XO's lithe form with ill-disguised envy. "You lose weight in that jail? Maybe I should have gone instead of you, and stayed for a week. Deanna's getting on my case again."

Tom snorted. "Mostly water loss, I think, plus an aversion to abdominal surgery. Not recommended as a weight loss regime. Besides, most of what I lost is back on already, actually, and my mother's cooking will take care of the rest, and then some. Her non-replicated breakfasts are deadly. We can get on the spin bikes together when I get back. Done that before, and that kind of misery sure loves company."

He lifted his hands, to show Riker what he was carrying: a bottle in one hand, two long-stemmed glasses in the other. "Anyway, I thought we needed to put a suitable closing stamp on this latest … adventure."

"Wine?"

"Yep, a 2372 Nyere Vineyards Merlot Reserve. Mbako's folks insisted on sending me a dozen cases, assorted vintages. Couldn't talk them out of it. I'm cellaring most of it at my parents', but B'Elanna and I decided to keep some in our quarters. And I thought you and I should crack the first bottle. After all, the whole thing was your idea."

Tom pulled a traditional corkscrew out of his pocket, and opened the bottle with practiced ease, sniffing the cork almost reverently. Riker's mouth quirked in quiet amusement at his XO's breezy assumption that it was perfectly acceptable to consume genuine alcohol in the Captain's ready room, and shook his head. _Picard would appreciate this_ …

Tom put the two glasses on the Captain's desk. He poured the deep, red liquid, and swirled the liquid around in both glasses. "It really should breathe a little first," he said, "but I have a date with Dr. Crusher in half an hour, before I go down. And besides, I just had a two-hour session with your lovely wife and can really use a drink."

Riker swung his feet of his desk. He had noticed a slightly reddish tinge in Tom's eyes, but wisely chose not to comment. Instead, he asked simply, "I assume Deanna was in her usual form?"

"Yeah," Tom replied, his eyes far away for a moment. "She's pretty amazing, you know. Wish I'd run into her sooner, instead of all those idiots who kept trying to remake me in my father's image. I think we'll be seeing more of each other." He handed Riker his glass, and looked him straight in the eye.

"I told Deanna she was free to answer any of your questions about … what we discussed. Seems only fair – you should know just what you got yourself into when you brought me aboard. Damaged goods, and all that."

Riker inhaled the rich bouquet of his wine with an appreciative smile, eyes closed, nostrils flaring, before turning his sharp, clear gaze back on his First Officer over the rim of his glass.

"You know, I think I got a pretty good idea what I was getting, from Janeway and Picard. And just based on what I've seen in the last few weeks, I can safely say I got exactly what I bargained for. Better. No further explanations required."

The Captain raised his glass. "_Quv_," he said, in guttural Klingon.

_Honour, earned._

Tom inclined his head in thanks, raised his own glass in response. "_vItHay_," he replied.

_The test of truth._

…..

Admiral (ret) Owen Paris was waiting by the private transporter pad on the Paris estate when Tom materialized there just over an hour later, his old battered duffle bag and a slightly singed leather jacket casually slung over his shoulder.

"Guess this time the mission was a bit shorter than last," Tom said after a quick embrace, from which Owen seemed loath to disengage. "Maybe I didn't need to send that letter after all."

His father gripped his arm, if anything, more tightly as he looked at his son with a mixture of love and respect that struck Tom far deeper in the gut than he would ever have thought possible. "I hope we've moved beyond the point where we need an excuse, like a long mission, to communicate or tell each other how we feel, Tom," he said simply. "And let me tell you right now, I'm proud – very proud – of all the things you achieved in the last few weeks, son."

They headed back to the main house side by side. "Oh," the Admiral said. "That stuff you ordered arrived yesterday. The tools are in the shuttle port, but I had them transport everything else straight to the edge of the woods, where you said you wanted to build that thing. It's all very … colourful."

"Well, if you want to attract kids, colour is the way to go." Tom grinned. He had cleared the construction of a toy castle on the park-like grounds with his mother, and was fully cognizant of the fact that, whatever Owen's reservations might be concerning the need to maintain the estate's landscaped dignity, his mother would authoritatively overrule them. The prospect of having her son create a play structure that would keep her three children's active brood out of the main house for hours at a time was one Julia Paris had gotten fully behind, the second he had mentioned the idea to her.

"You sure you want to build this yourself? And out of wood, yet?" Owen regarded his son with the mild curiosity one usually reserves for a slightly eccentric but not quite certifiable relative. "I mean, you _can_ get these … things pre-assembled, you know, made out of nice, durable materials. Not to mention just using a holodeck. This is the twenty-fourth century, after all."

"Oh yes, I'm sure," Tom was firm on that point, as he shifted his duffle bag onto the other shoulder. Miral's toys and books weighed more than one would have thought; he couldn't remember his bag ever being that heavy before, even for two-week away missions.

"At this particular time in my life, I can think of nothing I need more than to spend a couple of days hammering a bunch of nails into planks of wood that have been stained in primary colours. I can always call in the pros if I run out of enthusiasm." He added judiciously, "Or when B'Elanna loses patience with my engineering skills."

His father shrugged his acceptance – perhaps the most telling evidence of how their relationship had changed in the course of the last few years. "Whatever. It's your thumbs that will need regeneration, not mine. Guess the kids will like the thing well enough when it's done, and won't particularly care whether it's square or not."

"Oh ye of little faith," Tom sighed dramatically, shaking his head. He'd designed a space shuttle on the holodeck and helped build it from scratch, and put together Kahless knew how many cars – how much more difficult could a wooden play structure be, even if mistakes couldn't be erased with a simple command?

They were approaching the main house when Owen changed the topic. "You won't have heard the news because it hasn't broken yet, Tom. But Alynna Nacheyev commed me half an hour ago; she thought we should hear this from her directly." His face broke out in a grin anyone on _Voyager_ would have recognized instantly as belonging to their helmsman, after a particularly satisfying battle with the Kazon.

"The Sector Attorney is about to indict Chomyn, Burton and a number of senior executives of C&B Inc., as well as the company itself and some of their political aides from their time on the Council. They're facing a whole raft of charges, ranging from corruption, war profiteering and conspiracy to kidnap, to felony murder, reckless endangerment and negligent homicide. Not to mention unlawful production of prohibited weapons and devices, trading with the enemy and passing on sensitive Federation technology."

The Admiral chuckled darkly. "Oh – and my personal favourite, tax evasion. All their personal and the company's assets have been frozen and will be treated as proceeds of crime. If they're convicted on any of these charges, the money will be made available for restitution to victims on conviction."

He stopped for a moment, and turned to Tom, and his voice turned a little raspy. "You got those bastards, son," he said, "you got them good."

"No Dad, _we_ got them," Tom corrected, gently. "But not quite yet, I guess. There'll be a trial, and no doubt endless motions about the manner of their arrest, me firing a phaser over their heads and causing poor Chomyn to piss his pants, and all that stuff. I hope Jorak was right when he said all that was outside Federation jurisdiction. They can afford good lawyers – I just hope they don't hire Stan."

"Can't," Owen chuckled. "Conflict of interest. Happened to have him for dinner last night and he mentioned it, since their arrest has been all over the newsvids. He didn't seem to be too unhappy about it, either, and I've given him permission to turn over all of his notes from our discussions to the Sector Attorney. But whatever happens, C&B Inc. is dead in space. Starfleet has scrapped all its dealings with them. That's one empire crumbled into the dust of history."

"Well, I do hope they get a nice, juicy jail sentence on top of whatever financial disaster befalls them. I know just the perfect facility, where people of their pedigree and stature will be made more than welcome," Tom said, his voice carrying just a hint of venom. "And if they get off, well, I hope just airing out some of the Council's dirty laundry will help keep people on their toes in future."

Owen chuckled. "We know at least the tax evasion charge will stick. Those guys never give up."

Any further discussion was brought to a sudden end by a small figure that spilled out the front door and launched herself at Tom; he managed to drop his duffle bag and jacket just in time to catch her. Miral squealed with glee as he swung her around, tossed her up in the air and caught her again with practiced ease while the Admiral looked on with grandfatherly pride.

B'Elanna followed her daughter out the door at a slightly more measured pace. She raised a questioning eyebrow at Tom, who, smiling broadly, tilted and lifted his head slightly in response. Seeing his unblemished neck, still tanned from his time on Mokan but slightly paler now in a thickened line along the jugular vein, she broke into a small, approving smile of her own and nodded once.

Miral, happily sitting on her father's hip, started to report breathlessly on all the wonderful books and toys her grandparents had kept waiting for her in 'her' room, when she suddenly stopped squirming.

"Daddy, your number's gone," she breathed, her eyes wide in wonder.

She ran her stubby little fingers up and down Tom's neck where the mark of Auckland had been visible until just over an hour ago, tickling him and causing goose bumps to run up his arm. Tom turned his head away and half pulled up his shoulder in self-defense, unsuccessfully trying to suppress an utterly un-officer-like cackle. He ruffled Miral's dark hair affectionately as she buried her face in the crook of his neck and gave him a series of butterfly kisses.

"Yes, it is," he replied softly, when he had recovered his manly equilibrium. "Do you mind, munchkin?"

His daughter sat back on his hip and made a show of thinking hard, putting her finger on her lower lip like she had seen Flotter do so many times in her favourite holovids. She solemnly shook her head.

"No," she declared. "I know you're my Daddy without a number. ' Sides, no one else has one. Mommy doesn't and Grandpa and Gramma don't, Uncle Harry doesn't and Capt'n Will doesn't. So you don't need one either. You're still my Daddy. And I love you."

Tom hugged the little girl tightly, taking in the powdery scent that had become so much a part of his life over the last nearly two years, and blinking back the sudden moisture that seemed to want to spill out of his eyes. When he lifted his head, it was to find B'Elanna's smiling eyes on him, as well as his father's slightly puzzled ones. Julia Paris, who had emerged from the house to greet her son during the little scene, gave him a long, thoughtful gaze that told him there would be questions before long.

But right there, in that moment, on the front lawn of his childhood home, with his wife, his daughter and his parents looking on, Tom Paris came to a very definitive conclusion - one that had eluded him for many years.

"You're right, sweetheart," he said, a smile widening on his face as he planted a kiss on his daughter's softly ridged forehead.

"I don't need a number to know who I am anymore, either."

…..

* * *

><p><em>No free man shall be taken, or imprisoned, or dispossessed, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed, nor will we proceed with force against him, save by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.<em>

_To none will we sell, to none deny or delay, right or justice._

**Magna Carta (A.D. 1215)**

* * *

><p>…..<p>

For CDS, who held my hand through the tougher parts of this story, but frowns upon ticker tape parades.

And for Chris, who carries the torch - and wields the hammer when the day is done.


End file.
